---

Despite being the Count Kraus’s Lesser House where I reside, the items laid out in the tent are surprisingly simple.

There’s my bed where I sleep, one chair to sit, and a small table. Other than that, all I have are a few tools like whetstones for maintaining the clothes and equipment I’ll use during my stay.

There’s no fancy tea set like back at the castle, nor even simple snacks laid out. Ken, who always tended to my needs, is also not here. He didn’t really need to be here for the hunting training with the Knights Order, and more than that, Ken absolutely hated camping.

Despite having worked at Kraus for a long time, Ken was a butler, not a warrior. He must be waiting for us to return at the Legion, which will soon be the venue for the tournament.

The reason we’re out in the forest right now is purely for Orcus and Noel’s practice; it has nothing to do with the tournament. The tournament is for the various noble houses participating from the south, starting from one fortress in the castle.

Thinking about this, I turned my head to look at Elena. She caught my gaze and smiled back at me, but I could only respond with a small smile of apology.

The place we were currently in definitely felt lacking for a young lady and young lord like us who were used to living as nobles.

At this moment, it seems Noel and Orcus have adjusted, but their purpose is to participate in the tournament. Unlike them, Elena, who has no intention of participating, could have just stayed back waiting at the Legion with Ken.

In retrospect, considering her future endeavors, these discomforts weren’t worth worrying about, but that doesn’t mean Elena had to endure such inconveniences now. I was happy when she insisted on coming along, but this time I wished she’d just comfortably waited at the Legion.

Contrary to my worries, she seemed to spend her two days here camping like someone completely unfazed by discomfort. Yet that doesn’t mean my mind felt at ease. I realized that next time, even if Elena wanted to come, it might be better to keep her at the castle.

While organizing my thoughts, I turned my attention to the blanket, which had begun to tremble slightly. The cause was simple. It was Elena’s hand, which was right next to me.

Curious about the bed I was using, she silently examined it, pressing down on it with her palm like a cat. Surely, her bedding was prepared just like Orcus’s and Noel’s; could there be something different about it?

Hmm…

This is a bit embarrassing.

Elena looked cute pressing down on the bed sheets, but thinking that she was touching the blanket I usually used made me oddly conscious.

I hadn’t thought about it until just now, but was it an issue that she was pressing on my bed?

“Um, it’s damp…”

“Huh?!”

Caught off guard by her mumbling, I reflexively blurted out a response.

Damp? Did I spill something on my blanket?

Flustered by her unexpected comment, I brushed over the blanket, trying to assess the situation.

All I could think about was worrying about what misunderstanding she might have. My awkward expression while feeling the blanket seemed funny, as Elena giggled softly at me.

Hearing her laugh, I finally realized she was simply referring to the dampness of the blanket itself, which had absorbed a lot of moisture.

When I looked up at Elena again, all I saw was her playful smile welcoming me.

“Why do you look so flustered?”

“Um… no, it’s nothing.”

I must have enjoyed a cup of tea up here once or twice.

Sure, if it felt damp, I definitely had memories of something like that, but how could someone who had just been lying on the bed not know? It was my mistake to get flustered by her comment.

In response, Elena playfully poked my finger and lifted her other hand, waving it around in the air. Following the flow of mana from her hand, I realized she was doing something more than a simple gesture.

Small water droplets floating in the air began to gather towards the drawing she was making.

It was no exception for the clothes I was wearing and the blanket beneath us.

Droplets formed on the fabric and soon floated above her hand. The blanket Elena had mentioned as damp now appeared soft and dry, as if it had just been sun-dried.

The process of gathering moisture from the air felt like a dehumidifier, yet unlike a dehumidifier, the spectacle of glistening droplets visibly coalescing in the air was truly mesmerizing.

Before I knew it, a small sphere of water had formed above Elena’s hand.

It maintained a round shape, yet you could tell it was water, swaying precariously as if it might collapse at any moment.

Elena touched the water sphere with her hand, but it didn’t burst.

It felt like pressing a jelly, sinking in deeply before it bounced back to her fingers. As I gazed at it in wonder, Elena began to move her hand again, drawing something in the floating water.

The transparent stream starting from the orb soon turned into a line, moving along with her hand, gradually taking on a new shape. I decided to guess what Elena was trying to draw as I watched the picture take shape.

“Uh…”

It didn’t seem like a person. Was it an animal then?

The outline growing clearer, the picture stemming from the small stream was nearing completion. Even so, I remained stuck in my thoughts. It was certainly an animal, but was it a dog? Or a cat? The ears stood up, so one of those must be right, but I couldn’t figure out which.

What on earth is this?

Elena, who had completed the drawing, looked at me with expectation in her eyes. Normally I would smile back, but faced with those sparkling violet eyes, I felt a little intimidated.

Elena… you didn’t manage to draw it.

This wasn’t even mentioned in the novel.

While I should have been happy to learn more about her, I couldn’t bring myself to smile now. The drawing had long been completed, and it was now time to give an answer. Though I still couldn’t declare if it was a dog or a cat, I couldn’t continue to pretend I didn’t notice her sparkling eyes.

After some long deliberation, I finally couldn’t withstand the pressure anymore and opened my mouth.

“Is it a… dog?”

At my answer, a moment of silence fell between us.

Could it be that I got it wrong?

Maybe I should have said it was a cat.

As such thoughts cluttered my mind, Elena spoke up. Though disappointment flickered in her eyes, her moving lips wore a smile.

“If it’s a dog… I guess that could work. The answer is a wolf.”

“Oh, I see. What a pity.”

It was a wolf…

So that was a wolf.

Considering I was somewhat close to the right answer, Elena’s reaction wasn’t bad.

Speaking of which, the animal in the Edelweiss family crest was a wolf, so it was truly a stroke of luck that I didn’t say it was a cat. Or maybe a fox.

“Shall we move on to the next problem then?”

Ah.

Before I even had time to respond, Elena’s hands began moving quickly once again.

Seeing her like that made my heart race, but as she smiled brightly and moved her hands around, I couldn’t bring myself to say to stop.

She wasn’t the type to get upset over being wrong.

Eventually conceding defeat, I shifted my gaze back to her instead of focusing on the picture she was drawing. Since peering or waiting to see what she creates yielded the same result, it felt better to see her smiling face and relax my heart.

How long had I been watching? Suddenly, Elena stopped drawing and spoke to me.

“Damian. Do you want to try too?”

Out of the blue, she asked me that. Had she noticed that I was just admiring her smile since I had been looking another way? I was just watching her because I liked to see her smile. After a brief moment of contemplation, I nodded.

Then Elena took hold of one of my hands and started moving the mana in a completely different way from before. It felt like a cool energy passing through my hand. Unlike the passing breeze, this energy lingered close to my hand.

“All done. Give it a try.”

As she instructed, I raised a finger, and like earlier with her, the moisture in the air started gathering towards my fingertip. Watching that unfold, I moved my finger like I was using a pencil, creating a straight line of water.

“It feels so fascinating. It’s cool and refreshing.”

“Right? Now, try drawing something. This time I’ll guess!”

With her confidently proclaiming that, I let a smile tug at the corners of my mouth and moved my hand.

*

“Wow… I didn’t expect it to turn out like this.”

Looking up, I gasped at the sight of the ceiling, transformed into hues of blue by the water drawings floating above. The images made with water hung in the air, giving a surreal, dreamlike feeling, utterly removed from reality.

How should I describe this?

They floated like clouds, drifting across the tent’s ceiling, but were neither white nor did they carry the lightness of clouds.

It was a similar feeling to something I had experienced before… Right. It felt like I had stepped into an underwater aquarium. An aquarium where fish seemed to fly in the sky. Though it was different, the water-made figures floated in the air here too.

Neither Elena nor I had intended to create such a scene from the beginning.

We were simply engrossed in drawing, and when there was no more space left to draw, we looked up at the ceiling, which had transformed into this spectacle.

“Well, shall we do this?”

With no more space visible, Elena began gathering all the drawings we had created together. Because they were all made of water, as soon as they touched, they transformed into one giant droplet.

Had there been that much water in here? A giant water droplet filled the tent’s ceiling, making me wonder.

Elena proudly pointed at the droplet with her hand and said to me, “Now we can draw with this.”

It seemed she had really enjoyed our drawing game together.

Thinking that it might not be a bad idea to do this with Alphonse back home, I reached my hand toward the droplet. This time, our hands moved at the same time. I don’t know when it happened, but we had stopped challenging each other and had shifted to freely drawing together.

Elena spread her palm to flatten the round droplet into a square, and I started moving my hand over it to create the ground and sky. Rather than coloring it, just creating lines made it somewhat of a decent view.

Elena wasn’t just drawing animals…

Suddenly, the sensation of the blanket beneath my hand crossed my mind.

This wasn’t damp as before but fluffy. I removed my hand from the blanket and touched it with my other hand. The usual dampness from the rain was no longer present on my skin.

The rain kept drizzling outside. The sound of rain pattering against the tent and ground was a delightful background track. Listening to it made it clear. It would be a while longer before the rain stopped.

Above me, the giant droplet floated, while the sky outside the tent poured as if a hole had opened somewhere. Despite that, I felt no discomfort from the moisture.

The reason was simple. When she formed the water droplet, she must have taken a tiny amount of moisture that had been on my skin too. That said, my lips didn’t feel notably dry, but the experience felt similar to enjoying a spring day without rain.

Checking the moisture on my skin while messing with my hands, I reached out to her.

“Huh?”

I didn’t really think much of it.

Wondering if just touching her would feel awkward, as I no longer felt the need to just touch fingertips, I simply went for it.

I grabbed Elena’s shoulder and pulled her towards me. Startled by my sudden action, she paused her drawing and turned to face me, but I said nothing as I pressed my forehead against hers.

Her soft hair tickled me.

Elena didn’t blush nor did she shy away from my gaze as she comfortably leaned against me, just like during our previous outing.

“Hehe…”

As I playfully tickled her chin with my hand, Elena basked in the warmth and scooted even closer.

Perhaps it was the soothing sound of the rain and the images floating in the air, but this place felt like a different world rather than the tent I had stayed in.

Was it because it felt like we were the only two left in one world? Or was it the sparkling smile on her face drawing me in? My mind was narrowing the distance between us.

Elena didn’t push me away as I approached.

Without turning her head elsewhere, she kept looking at me while closing the distance.

We were so close now that our breaths mingled against our skin.

We had never gotten this close even while dancing. Where had that shy, blushing version of myself gone that used to avoid eye contact? I reckon the remnants of Damian’s existence must not be influencing my actions altogether, but I no longer felt the wild excitement I used to when getting closer to her.

I held my breath, staring at her lips.

“Um.”

The moment drifting towards Elena felt unbelievably brief, yet in my mind, an eternity seemed to pass. I had never thought my evolved cognition would lead to this kind of hesitation. Because of this, what could have been completed in a moment now brought only tension.

In that moment, as the distance and my pounding heart reached their peaks, a sound different from the continuous rain began to pierce my ears.

Splash.

The sound of squelching mud splattering filled the air.

Someone was entering this place. While I didn’t turn to identify who it was, the following voice immediately revealed their identity.

“Damian!! This is bad! It seems brother is very sick!! He said he wants to go hunting when the rain stops…”

Chwaaaaaaak-!

Noel’s shouted words mingled with the pouring water masked my ears, causing the pictures floating above us to turn into a heavy waterfall, drenching the room.

I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but here we are.

As a last resort, I used the curtain of water above us to plant a short kiss on her lips, then turned back to Noel with a nonchalant expression.

“I didn’t quite hear that. Could you say it again?”

Noel’s response was absent.

 

---