Just saying ‘I like you’ felt too plain.
And yet, Allen’s mind was totally void of vocabulary suitable for a moment like this. Unaccustomed as he was, he strained his brain with desperate effort.
‘I’ll make you happy for the rest of your life.’
…No good. He’d already said that the day they met.
‘I want to spend my entire life with you.’
…That might be way too heavy for a first confession.
‘I would give you the world!’
…That sounded like a full-blown villain’s line. Definitely too much.
Unable to come up with anything good to say, he continues to think about what to do――
“Allen-san!”
“Whoa!”
A sudden, panicked voice snapped him back to reality.
He looked up to see Charlotte running toward him in a rush.
Lu was nowhere to be seen, and it was clear that something was wrong. Thanks to that, his nervousness disappeared in an instant.
“S-sorry to bother you while you were resting…! But it’s urgent!”
“What happened? Is something wrong with Luu?”
"Luu is watching over it... but, um, there's nothing I can do..."
Charlotte was out of breath and spoke in fragments. Her face had gone even paler than Allen’s.
She pointed a trembling finger past the flower field and cried out, a look of deep distress on her face.
“There’s an injured dragon over there!”
Following Charlotte’s lead, Allen ran through the flower field.
Then, in the middle of a small hill in a small depression, there was Luu, and in front of her eyes, a small dragon was crouching.
Small, by dragon standards.
Roughly three meters long, covered in pale green scales, it lay hunched over and whimpering softly.
Allen exclaimed in admiration as he saw it.
"Oh... a Noble Dragon child. That's quite rare."
“Really?”
"Yes. To put it simply, they're a race that can repel magic."
Therefore, they are the natural enemies of magicians like Allen.
Normally, these dragons lived quietly in underground caves, so spotting one in the open was incredibly uncommon. It must have come from the nearby dungeon and gotten injured, unable to return home.
(…But I don’t see any visible wounds?)
From what Allen could tell, the Noble Dragon wasn’t hurt.
And yet, even when he approached to within several meters, it didn’t move. That could only mean it was unwell.
"For now... Heal."
Allen tried to cast a simple healing spell on the dragon. A pale light enveloped his body, but――
"Grrrrrr!"
The dragon growled in a low voice, and the healing light vanished.
Allen shrugged.
"See? It would be quicker to bring a magic potion from home."
“Then… maybe I could try talking to it?”
“...That might not be a bad idea.”
Just like with Luu, maybe Charlotte could calm the creature down and get it to accept treatment.
"But it’s a wild monster...so... whoa!"
“Allen-san!?”
Suddenly, a heavy impact struck him from behind, and Allen tumbled forward.
He feared for a moment that the dragon had attacked, but when he looked back, it was Luu who had rammed into him.
“Ow… What was that for, Luu?”
"Argh...!"
Luu glared at Allen with sharp eyes and pointed at the Noble Dragon with her chin.
It was as if she was warning him to ‘be careful’...