Episode 5.
Adele and Siegmund returned from the firefly-filled forest well past midnight.
As soon as they came back, Adele fell fast asleep.
But even after Adele fell asleep, little Siegmund rolled around beside her, then suddenly jumped up and hopped off the bed.
Clenching his fists and tensing his body, he fluttered the wings on his back.
When he flapped those palm-sized wings with all his strength, Siegmund’s feet began to lift off the ground little by little.
“I’m flying. I’m flying. I can fly.”
Flapping his wings until his face turned red, Siegmund flew from one end of the room to the other, then quickly returned to Adele’s side.
He wanted to show her that he could fly.
“Adele, Adele.”
He touched Adele’s finger with both hands and called her name, but she was deeply asleep and did not open her eyes.
A small, steady breath slipped out from her slightly parted lips.
“Adele. Adele?”
After calling her several more times, Siegmund eventually gave up.
“Sleepyhead.”
*Huff*, he puffed air into his cheek, making it balloon up.
Whenever he was upset or couldn’t get what he wanted, Siegmund would always puff air into his cheek like this.
It meant, *I’m angry, so notice me.*
But now, Adele was fast asleep. No matter how much he did it, she wouldn’t notice.
“Adele, I can fly. I can.”
Siegmund gently shook Adele’s shoulder.
Once Adele fell asleep, she never woke up.
She moved around so much during the day that at night she slept like she was passed out.
And when that happened, Siegmund was alone.
He never told Adele, but Siegmund often woke up like this at night.
Once awake, he couldn’t sleep again until dawn.
Was it because he napped too much during the day?
The haystack piled in the corner of the barn smelled nice.
It smelled like sunlight.
Lying on the soft hay, breathing in that scent, sleep came easily.
Once he woke from those naps, he would play alone inside the barn.
During the day, Adele was busy.
— *If others see us, we won’t be able to stay together. You understand? So you must not come out.*
Adele said those words many times.
*Don’t come out of the barn.*
*Even if you’re curious about outside, hold it in.*
*I’ll play with you at night.*
He once peeked out through the broken wooden wall of the barn because he was too curious about the outside.
Every time he did, Adele was struggling, carrying heavy things with effort.
Other people lived in this house besides Adele.
A loud woman, a scrawny man, and some ugly children.
All of them treated Adele badly.
They pushed all the hard work onto her.
They were bad people.
Siegmund wanted to punish them, but even he knew he must not be seen by them.
“…”
Siegmund looked down at his palm.
He was so small.
Small hands, small body.
Compared to Adele, he was tiny—yet even Adele couldn’t deal with those bad people.
So he needed to grow quickly.
He wanted to grow huge—so he could punish those who bullied Adele.
And he would never let Adele carry anything heavy again.
He’d carry everything heavy and do all the difficult things, so Adele could sit relaxed atop the haystack.
He would carry Adele on his back and fly her to the highest place, just like she wished.
He would gather every sparkling gem in the world and give them to her.
Anyone who made Adele cry, he would make cry tenfold, and anyone who tormented her, he would torment a hundred times more.
But to do that, he needed to grow up fast.
“I can fly.”
Adele didn’t know, but Siegmund could fly.
He had practiced flying several times in the barn.
He flew well in the barn, but he couldn’t fly on the Firefly Hill.
— *You must be a big bird, maybe.*
Adele had said that once.
*A big bird.*
Birds can fly.
So Siegmund believed he could fly. Why? Because he was a bird. A big one, even.
“I can fly.”
He had just flown a moment ago.
Only a little within the room, but still—he really flew.
He flew well in the barn, and well in the room—so he must be able to fly well outside too.
Flapping his wings, Siegmund walked toward the window.
He grabbed the windowsill, which was higher than his head, and struggled to climb.
After failing twice, he finally climbed up and looked down.
It was high, but he wasn’t scared. Because he could fly.
Siegmund flapped his wings again.
His two-hand-sized wings fluttered hard.
“Hup.”
He took a deep breath and leaped into the air.
He flapped his wings desperately.
“Mm—mm—mm!”
He clenched his fists tight and focused all his nerves on his wings.
His face turned beet red, but perhaps because he focused only on the wings—
“Ah!”
His lips stretched wide.
His body was rising, slowly, little by little.
He was lifting himself into the air with his wings.
“I can fly. I *am* flying!”
Once he started, he flew surprisingly well.
Siegmund circled the attic ceiling once, then rose all the way up to the chimney.
“Hello, chimney bird.”
He greeted the small bird nesting at the chimney’s edge, then climbed even higher.
He reached the top of a tall tree beside the house, where an owl on a branch rolled its eyes at him.
“Hello, owl. Look, I can fly too.”
His wings were small, but flying wasn’t difficult anymore.
Now freely soaring, Siegmund flew higher still, up near the clouds and the moon.
At such a great height, everything came into view at once.
It was amazing.
There were no lights anywhere, yet he could see clearly all around.
He could see the barley fields tipping sideways with the wind, flying birds, and even the flickering glow of fireflies far off at Firefly Hill.
“What’s that…”
Siegmund’s purple eyes turned far, far into the distance.
Something faint and glowing shone there.
It might be the place Adele called “the village.”
Adele once said villages had many curious things.
But Adele had never been, and of course Siegmund neither.
Siegmund looked back and forth between the distant lights and the small house below.
“I’ll be quick. If I return before Adele wakes, it’ll be fine.”
Thinking alone and deciding alone, Siegmund flew toward the village.
His reason for going was only one:
In the village, there were many wondrous things—and also stores that sold clothes.
The bad people in the house always returned from the village with new clothes.
New outfits, new hats, and new shoes.
But never once anything for Adele.
Those bad people wore nice clothes while Adele wore torn and shabby rags every day.
Siegmund hated that the most beautiful person in the world wore such clothes.
He wanted to dress her in something pretty.
He wanted to find beautiful clothes in the village and give them to Adele.
Then Adele would surely smile.
Of course, Siegmund didn’t have a single coin.
He didn’t even know what money was.
He’d been in this world for only a little over ten days.
The only person he knew was Adele.
He learned everything from her.
Money was simply not one of the things she taught.
So he had no idea that clothes required money to buy.
He flew on, knowing nothing.
—
Crackle, crackle.
A soldier who had been dozing off beside the campfire jolted awake at approaching footsteps.
“The discipline of the army has weakened.”
“My apologies. I will correct it immediately.”
Startled by the sight of the people before him the moment he awoke, the soldier dropped to his knees as two men passed him.
One wore a white cloak and golden armor—Grand Duke Ernes, ruler of the nation.
With the emperor’s throne vacant, Grand Duke Ernes was the acting sovereign of the kingdom.
Walking close beside him was a man in silver armor—Baron Lucen, commander of the Imperial Knight Order.
The reason the kingdom’s ruler and the knight commander had pitched a camp near this small village on the outskirts was a secret known only to very few.
“Have you not found it yet?”
As soon as he entered the command tent, Grand Duke Ernes glared at Baron Lucen.
His eyes were filled with anger.
“We are expanding the search area. We will surely recover it soon.”
“That must come into my hands first. You understand?”
“Of course.”
“If it falls into another’s hands…”
Grand Duke Ernes scowled darkly.
What troubled him was the whereabouts of the sacred egg stolen from the imperial temple.
The sacred dragon egg.
A dragon egg that had shown signs of hatching for the first time in three hundred years.
Yet suddenly, it vanished without a trace.
And no culprit had been found.
The founding ancestor of the Visen Kingdom was a dragon.
A great magic dragon descended from another world, took human lands, and created the kingdom—what is now Visen.
The first emperor of Visen, who took human form from a dragon, ruled nearly a hundred years before returning to the otherworld.
He left behind a single egg—the second emperor.
The second emperor hatched not as a dragon but in human form, ruled for a hundred years, then returned to the otherworld as a dragon.
Thus, each generation of Visen’s rulers awakened from the egg left behind by the previous.
But generations ago, the eggs stopped hatching easily.
What once hatched within a month took one year, ten years, a hundred.
And the current egg had shown no signs for three hundred years.
A month ago, the long-standing egg in the imperial temple began to tremble.
A sign of hatching.
A dragon egg awakening after three centuries.
Meaning—a true sovereign would soon be born again after three hundred years.
Grand Duke Ernes, born from one of the former emperor’s consorts and carrying dragon blood, ruled the kingdom in the emperor’s absence.
Now that the rightful emperor was about to be born, the most crucial thing for him was to be present at the moment of hatching.
A dragon imprints on the first being it sees upon hatching.
If he captured that moment, he would not lose his power.
If another gained the egg first, he would lose everything.
“I absolutely cannot allow that.”
Grand Duke Ernes’ eyes gleamed cold and dangerous.
