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The night has ended and this time, we will be traveling at Ciel’s maximum speed.

『You can rest whenever you want, okay Ciel?』
「In that case, we might end up traveling the whole day.」

Ciel said with a giggle, but since this requires me to sing continuously, I won’t be able to tell her to take a break. Because of that, while I don’t mind if it was just a joke, I’ll be worried if Ciel actually means this. I could stop singing to call out to her, but with this method of travel, it’s possible for Ciel to get injured if I suddenly stopped singing.

「Don’t worry. After all, this body isn’t just mine.」
『Understood. I trust you, Ciel. Also, one more thing.』
「About what to do upon encountering enemies, right?」
『Yes. This time, there is a possibility of encountering A-rank monsters, so I’ll be hard-pressed to call this safe.』
「I’ll observe first and if the situation seems manageable, let’s defeat them immediately. If not, then let’s retreat.」
『That should be alright. However, there’s one thing I want to ask of you.』
「What is it? I’ll do anything you ask!」

Ciel became awfully excited, so in order to keep it from affecting her judgment, I calmly relay to her my request.

『If we encounter an A-rank, I’ll use a spherical barrier. Once is enough but please receive an attack with that barrier.』
「You want to see how strong an A-rank is, right Ain? Still, I think that your barrier can block their attack completely.」
『The golden wolf broke through my barrier after all, so…』
「In my opinion, there was nothing you could have done at that time. Ain’s barrier was simply a bad match against it, so there’s no need to worry about that.」
『I can’t really argue if you put it in that way but… Setting that aside, we might get into trouble if we don’t check our current defensive ability, you know?』
「That’s true. I’ll try to take some attacks then.」

I’m happy that Ciel would comfort me like that, but I cannot let her confidently take an attack that would destroy the barrier. For the sake of keeping Ciel from becoming a laughingstock as well, I’ll need to have a proper grasp of my own abilities. Besides that, I want to try experimenting with the power that we got from the golden wolf. I suspect that using it should make us capable of defending against something like the golden wolf’s claws, but this is still nothing more than speculation.

Anyhow, since we finished discussing, I began to sing.

There are various sorts of sorcery, but the ones that have a good affinity with the Dance Princess are those of fire, water, and ice. After all, these allow a showy use of sorcery. As to be expected, being able to fascinate and impress is fundamental. Sorcery itself is a prop to attract the eye, to make the dances appear more dazzling. And those who can achieve this have a strong affinity with it.

For this reason, we’ve only created water and ice stage but we could also set up fire or earth stages if we wanted to. While an earth stage is not as visually distinguishable, Ciel has the ability to transform the surrounding area into a forest spanning several kilometers, provided she can handle the magical expenditure. Though, doing so would exhaust her before she even begins to dance and could cause unwanted attention, so we probably won’t be doing anything like that. Instead, we could consider simpler options such as raising the ground level or transforming the area into a flower garden, which would be less taxing on Ciel’s magical power.

If we consider earth, water, fire, and wind to be the basic elements, then the one that has a bad affinity with the Dance Princess would be wind… or so I thought. While we do use wind sorcery frequently on its own, that’s less due to the Dance Princess’ ability but more a display of Ciel’s ability in sorcery.

Since enticing is a requirement, I thought that the wind attribute, being invisible from the naked eye, would have a terrible affinity with the Dance Princess, but it turned out that this wasn’t the case at all. And that led to our current mode of travel.

The point is, Ciel can run through the sky.

She can walk in the air, making it a stage of wind. As a dance, it can probably be described as a sort of dance of spirits or dance of fairies. My guess is that seeing the spirits happily jumping around in the air increased Ciel’s mastery with it.

While there are people that can use sorcery to soar through the sky, this is something that only the top class sorcerers can achieve after great efforts. Ciel is an excellent sorcerer herself, but flying without any prior practice is obviously very much impossible.

Back on topic.

With her thin and slender feet, Ciel grasped the air and jumped towards the sky. Matching my song, she dashed through the air like a fawn galloping in the fields. Taking notice of this, a spirit began cheerfully flying around Ciel.

As soon as one spirit began playing, the others joined in, and Ciel followed suit. What started as a dance has now turned into a lively festival. However, we must not forget that we are still soaring through the air with the power of the Dance Princess, so let’s not think about that.

On closer inspection, the spirits seemed to be moving to the beat of my song, but let’s not think about that either. There’s also some of them trying to sing along, but let’s ignore that too.

It’s heartwarming, so it’s all good. The fact that the spirits can hear my voice doesn’t matter too much in particular.

There’s no problem with them being buffed after all. To begin with, I don’t even know if I can buff spirits. After all, they’re clearly beings different from normal living creatures.

Still, from the eyes of the people who can’t see spirits, Ciel’s actions are dodgy. She is, after all, laughing and smiling at the empty sky, so people might think that she’s insane. While considering the need of careful consideration while using this ability, I continued to sing as usual since there’s no use in talking to her about this now, or rather we’ll crash if I stop singing.

◇

Three days after leaving the town of Norvelle. While pondering whether I’m being lazy or not, I repeatedly sing the same song. Or rather, I’m singing a song that can continue endlessly. I’ll change into a different song once I get sick of it, but I’ve probably been singing the same song for several hours now.

Game BGMs are amazing.

While I could probably look for a regular song too, I’m not skillful enough to do that, so songs that are made to loop from the start really helps for extended periods of time like these.

Well, let’s leave my impressions on music aside.

After all, I can see a large silhouette within my field of vision. It would’ve been fine if we were on the ground, but no matter how I look at it, we’re in the sky. It’s not as if monsters that can fly don’t exist. There are monsters with features similar to birds. However, flying monsters are all troublesome in general. Just the fact that it can fly is trouble enough, sure, but this is because most of them are also high ranked monsters.

They’re mythical beasts that are well-known even in my past life.

Now that it’s considerably close, I can see what seems to be a wyvern. An A-rank flying lizard. Since we’re encountering one here, then the stampede likely already started. I have no idea what the scale of this stampede is, but just from the appearance of a wyvern, the damage to the capital is probably going to be big.

If possible, I’d prefer to ignore all of these wyverns, head to the capital, leave the supplies, and escape, but unfortunately they’re heading right towards us. If these were ordinary land-based monsters, we could have easily ignored them and continued flying above. However, given the presence of wyverns, it may be risky to head towards the capital while being pursued. There is a possibility that we may be accused of bringing the wyverns along, which could result in our capture.

Now, what if we had chosen to travel by foot instead? In that situation, we would have encountered significantly more monsters than the current ten wyverns in pursuit. Based on sheer numbers alone, flying through the sky was the better choice. Luckily, it appears that the other monsters are not pursuing us like the wyverns.

From here on, whether we land on the ground or fight them here in the air will depend on Ciel, but it appears that Ciel chose to fight as she showed no signs of heading towards the ground. As we discussed beforehand, I cast a spherical barrier for Ciel to receive attacks with.

The wyvern approaching has green scales, sharp claws, and a tail, with its arms and wings being fused together. While I haven’t read up about them thoroughly, if I’m not mistaken, since their tails have venom, just a graze from it would make the battle unfavorable. It is quite dangerous for barrier testing, but that simply means it won’t matter as long as it doesn’t destroy the barrier.

Also, now that it’s near, it’s easy to understand that the wyvern is very big. It’s several times Ciel’s size, so it has a sort of last boss impression. While I do think that it’s not that much bigger than the golden wolf, the wolf walks on all fours and, in contrast, this lizard flies like it walks on two legs, so this one feels more intimidating.

It’s like a wall.

The first wyvern to come near flew at a higher altitude than Ciel and then suddenly swooped down to capture Ciel with its claws. Like a bullfighter, Ciel nimbly evaded and, at one occasion, had the claws hit the barrier intentionally. The strong impact almost made Ciel lose her balance, but she skillfully used sorcery to recover.

At the same time, I was certain of this battle’s victory.

It probably has other ways of attacking, but no matter how much it repeats the same attack earlier, it won’t destroy my barrier. Or rather, Carol’s ice spear is much more powerful than this. Next, we blocked its approaching tail.

It might have some other trick up its sleeve, but there’s no doubt that we’re in a considerably more advantageous position. Yup, I guess the golden wolf really was just abnormal. Still, while we probably won’t lose here, I have no idea if we can defeat it. The key here will be whether Ciel’s attacks are effective against A-rank monsters or not.

As though frolicking with a wyvern charging in for a bite, Ciel ran through the sky. Now flying freely in the sky like some magical girl, Ciel shot blades of wind at every given opportunity and steadily wounded the wyvern. If she was wearing a frilly outfit and had a wand, it’ll probably look perfect. There’s no issue with her age-wise as well, but since what Ciel’s using is closer to sorcery than it is to magic, I guess that makes her more a sorcery girl.

Jokes aside, there are currently too many wyverns which makes it difficult to continue on the offensive.

Thankfully, the wyverns don’t seem to be skilled at aerial combat, and we can outmaneuver them with sharp and precise movements. Since they primarily target creatures on the ground, their large bodies may make it difficult to focus on smaller prey like us. However, my thoughts were interrupted when I suddenly sensed something approaching us from a distance. It was too late when I realized it, and a swift tail suddenly struck Ciel on the head, occupying my field of vision.

Although the barrier is capable of blocking attacks, there is no way to redirect the force of an impact while we are airborne. I barely had time to contemplate the potential consequences of being slammed to the ground when I decided to activate my second experiment.

The mysterious power used by the golden wolf that melded into my barrier. Just as how I make use of magic power in sorcery, I circulated it through the body and released it outside. The fact that I’m able to circulate an energy more powerful than magic power is all thanks to Ciel’s atypical magic circuits.

In what felt like a brief skydive or cordless bungee jump, we landed on the ground in a fraction of a second. Surprisingly, I barely felt the impact at all. Realizing what happened, Ciel looked around and the area surrounding her turned into a small crater.

Looking up, the wyvern quickly drew near us. Without looking away from the large creature approaching close before our eyes, Ciel did nothing at all. Just as I was pondering what’s on her mind, the charging wyvern’s claws hit the barrier and snapped.

Perhaps feeling pain, if not anger for things not happening as it planned, the wyvern roared before fleeing back into the sky. Yup. It looks like the barrier’s defensive ability has increased.

『What should we do about that?』

Since we fell from the sky, I stopped singing and asked Ciel. The wyverns appeared to be still locked onto Ciel, as they’re circling us in the air.

「Thanks to Ain, I won’t lose against them but just going to the royal capital like this would also be bad, right?」
『It’d be better to avoid doing that, yes.』
「Then there’s no other choice but to defeat them; still, it’ll be hard to use anything other than wind sorcery up in the sky, while down here any other types of sorcery likely wouldn’t reach them. So, how about I try acting like a typical Dance Princess for this occasion?」
『That might be a good idea. I’ll provide support to keep you from getting wet then.』

With our next move decided, I started singing once again. What we’re going to perform right now is a ceremony of sorts, so I sang a solemn song befitting of one. Ciel kicked the ground, constructing a simplified stage. After so, Ciel used her robe in place of a stole and fell to her knees as though to offer a prayer. While we haven’t done this much up until now for some reason, this is the most typical form of the Dance Princess’ ability.

Set a stage, perform music, and offer a dance.

Ciel slowly stood up and without any imbalance in her body’s core, she then performed a gentle and slow spin. She moved her slim body greatly, moving as a gentle flowing stream, continuously matching my song. Following her movements, her robe seized the air, which spread it wide open, and followed Ciel’s motions as though unaffected by the pull of gravity.

What’s perhaps the most regrettable part might be that Ciel is in a completely hunter-like attire. Or maybe it’s the fact that her gallery only consists of lizards.

Being covered in thick clouds, the sky turned dark and perhaps sensing something, the wyverns began to move in disarray.

――Drip

A drop of rain fell from the sky.

――Drip Drop

The raindrops continued to multiply, from one to two, then to three and beyond. Before long, they fell incessantly, their sound linking into a continuous rhythm.

In the middle of this heavy torrent, Ciel continued dancing alone. Twirling round and round, as though eagerly awaiting this savage blessing. Flowing smooth and slow, as though celebrating this cruel world. The spirits joyfully jump about. The blue spirits in particular are swimming about in the sky.

The wyverns that failed to escape had their wings slammed by the raindrops and fell to the ground. And as a flash of lightning descended, Ciel ended her dance.

Hiya~! Another dance, another slain! And this time, unlike Ciel’s usual battle mage-dancer hybrid battle style, we have a pure ceremonial dance princess!

First of all, giggly Ciel is always cute. Terribly cute. Also, Ciel gladly willing to hear any of Ain’s requests, lol. And Ain, lol, I feel you, game bgms are top tier background music for doing stuff. They are background music after all.

With their growth so far, our princesses are really shaping up into fairies, it seems, lol. First the avatar bending like dances, then a mode of flight that is further influenced by that of the spirits playing around them, and Ciel basically looks like an ethereal being from how pristine she always looks anyway. And to top it off, ceremonial dancing that summons torrential rain and thunder, which is practically on the realm of this world’s magic rather than sorcery. Think about it, magic needs a sacrifice that isn’t particularly just magic power, heck Ain’s magic (the strengthening of her barrier with the sacrifice of her combat capabilities) used zero magic power at all. So in a sense, the ceremonial dance could be seen as a “sacrifice” as it is an offering, with the resulting rain being summoned with no magic power at all. In this sense, dance princesses are really op but specialized even without the capability for sorcery. Well, enough about me gushing over this, lol.

Btw, is it me or is the author/Ain referring to Miyu Edelfelt from Prisma Illya when she was describing how magical girl-ish Ciel’s air walk is, lol. I do see some similarities with Ciel and Miyu tho, but that’s just my speculation.

Now then, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please feel free to comment. Stay clean, stay safe, and have a nice day~!