I could only stand in silence as I watched the majestic creature in front of me breathed fire and roared while that adorable voice rushed inside my head. I turned my head towards Catherine, but she only smiled and shook her head with a sigh.

“That’s the red ancient dragon. She’s a good girl, as long as you don’t provoke her and hurt her offspring too much,” Catherine said as she pointed at the big flying creatures. “She’s capable of telepathy, unlike other dragons. So, If you feel lonely, just talk to her.”

I tried to examine her, but the text bubbles like the one that floated besides the slime earlier didn’t appear. Catherine tilted her head with a puzzled expression before she finally understood.

“Your identification skill is still level 1. It would work for creatures up until level 30, but loses its accuracy above that. For an ancient dragon like this girl with a level over 500, it won’t work at all.” Catherine explained.

The red ancient dragon roared once more, however the voice inside my head created an uncanny polarity with her cheerful, adorable voice like a child, “ehehe~ You don’t need to praise me too much.”

I couldn’t tell whether I wanted to laugh, or cry. However, the adorable flap of wings suddenly stopped. The dragon’s eyes were staring at me intensively, with an occasional blink that examined my entire being.

“Um..” I muttered as my interlocked fingers fluttered with an awkward fidget. My ears and tails were shrinking in fear as I put my gaze away from the dragon. “I-if you stare at me too much… I would be embarrassed…”

A sudden panic assaulted my brain so much I had to put my hands on my ears. An alarmed look from the ancient dragon was visible as I saw her roaring, but what came in my head was an adorable cough.

“S-sorry. It’s just…” I saw the dragon turned towards Catherine with an unsure voice, “I didn’t expect the witch of the hill to be with a fox.”

“Her name is Mashiro Shimizu Mikan. I’m taking her as my apprentice at the moment. So be nice and call her with her proper name, okay?” Catherine took a frightening glare into the red ancient dragon eyes, which was met by the dragon frantic nod. After the nod, Catherine sighed as she took her sight somewhere. “I understand what you mean though.”

Meanwhile, the dragons that fainted earlier woke up and saw them roaring to the ancient dragon. Perhaps it was a family bickering, since I could see the red ancient dragon used her wings to slap the smaller dragon that silenced them.

I tilted my head in confusion, still puzzled by the conversation between the ancient dragon and Catherine, but she simply turned her body around. She started to walk away from the dragon.

“Let’s go home, my apprentice. I need to make dinner.”

----------------------------------------

“Thank you for the food,” I said, in a low volume. It was a cabbage salad, once again, but with a mix of chicken meat inside of it, or at least, a meat resembling the tenderness and taste of a chicken.

Catherine looked at her empty plates with absentminded eyes. “I'm… sorry,” she muttered. She sighed with rather tired eyes, no, it was almost as if she was trying to avoid my gaze.

“No no, you don't need to apologise for anything!” I tried to assure her as I swayed my arms around in panic. Ever since we've encountered the dragon, Catherine has been rather exhausted. She walked without her usual cheerful cadence and her strides were rather slow. To cheer her up, I tried to smile as I stood up, “I'll take care of the dirty dishes, you should rest, Catherine.”

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“N-no! Don't worry about me, I'll do them. I'm fine, just…” Catherine stopped midway as her eyes met mine. She quickly avoided her gaze and tried to grab the dirty plates. However, I forcefully grabbed the plates before she could even touch it.

I once again insisted, “Miss Catherine, please. I'm your apprentice, right? Let me do this.”

Afterall, she had done the dishes earlier this noon, and she already cooked for dinner. I tried to help her to cook dinner, but she insisted on doing it alone. I really felt bad being a freeloader, so this time, I tried my best to be the one that does the chore, even if I had to do it forcefully.

“Fine, but I'll do the dirty dishes for tomorrow's breakfast, lunch and dinner.” With a final sigh, she relaxed her hand and stood from her chair. She walked rather lethargically towards her bedroom. As she walked away, I muttered in a low voice, “You’re too nice, Catherine.”

I smiled weakly after seeing her close the door to her bedroom. I walked towards the kitchen sink while holding the dirty plates and started scrubbing away. I've already seen it earlier today, but the faucet on the kitchen sink really did work. It made me wonder if I was actually living in another world.

“Hm.. hm…” I hummed the soundtrack to the luminous dream game. It was only for a short while, since there weren't really a lot of dirty dishes to clean.

Feeling bored, I put the clean plates on the rack and walked towards the front door. I watched the lantern hanging outside the front door without any reason. I opened the front door and let the night breeze from outside hit me.

“Catherine must be sleeping right now…” I muttered to no one. I looked up to see countless stars and two giants… moons? One had a shiny blue color while the other was green. I really travelled to another world, didn't I?

On the silver lining, I met a nice lady that would take care of me. A boy and grandpa that let me sleep the night, and the big but cute dragon. With the exception of being killed by Furukawa Shiro twice, it wasn't… too bad of a life.

“Fuck society!” A distant voice could be heard, followed by a harmonious sound of heavy guitar notes.

Without holding back, I ran. My breathing went from normal to desperately trying to gasp any air I could. After finding that breathing through my nose insufficient, I opened my mouth as I forced the oxygen through and out. I kept running. I could barely feel my legs, but still, I forced my legs to moveorced myself to pull the leg below me while huffing terribly.

“The world should just burn~” The outside was dark, scary, filled with bugs and terrifying noises from nocturnal creatures that I didn’t hear in the afternoon. However, I kept pushing, trying to find the source of the melody I’ve kept hearing. It didn’t matter if it came from the forest, I kept running towards it.

I finally entered the forest, but I didn’t stop running. I looked back for a second. I couldn’t see any resemblance of the Catherine aesthetic house I just left, but that didn’t matter. I still heard the sound of an electric guitar playing, so I kept on running.

I almost fell a couple of times due to lack of visible light. Still, I couldn’t care less. Even if I couldn’t see anything, I would still run, each stride made the voice and the notes clearer.

I didn’t realize it at first since I was so focused on running, but there were a couple of light blue colored butterflies following me as I ran. I slowly lost strength on my legs, but I still pushed through. Perhaps cheering me up, or curiosity, the butterflies surrounded me as they showed me the way by giving a bright light blue color.

Finally, I could see the source of it all. A person, with the same fox ears as mine and tail, standing alone on top of a giant tree stump as if it was a stage, while strumming her guitar and singing with a thunderous voice.

There were a couple of shining red roses that filled the near vicinity with its faint color and light, fitting with the flower embroidered dress the girl was wearing. Yet, the voice that came out from her wasn’t a calm and soothing voice like a flower, but the one that sounded similar like a thunder, rough, fitting the tone that came out from her electric guitar.

“Burn, burn everything!~” the girl screamed, her fox ears were fluttering like crazy, matching the movement of her fingers playing the guitar. With a final crescendo, she led the guitar to sing a beautiful melody, until the last note ended.

I clapped slowly after her performance, which was met by her reflexively hiding beside the tree stump she was standing on. However, after seeing me, she sighed in relief and walked towards me.

“That was amazing, Natsumi.” I smiled while clapping and being surrounded by dozens of light blue colored butterflies or so.

Natsumi looked at me with a perplexed expression as her ears flapped in confusion, “Do I know you, miss butterfly stranger?”