“I really am curious what our kin are like. It’s been ages since we saw anyone else of our kind, hasn’t it?”

“Mmm~ I hope it’s a handsome guy.”

“Hey, hey, honey, I’m right here. Is it really okay to say that?”

“What’s the big deal? Looking at handsome guys doesn’t conflict with loving my darling most of all.”

A woman with the youthful looks of a teenage girl clung to Antika, smiling as she spoke.

Is that Aya’s mom?

Worried that Tiran might take one of those long Dragon names and arbitrarily shorten it to something a little questionable, just like she’d done with her own, Antika decided to act first. She introduced her wife using the human custom of a first and last name.

Ruko, huh… The name suits her pretty well.

Tiran, leading the way out front, pricked up her ears to listen to the conversation behind her. After making sure she’d heard right, she couldn’t help grumbling to herself.

To be fair, after they left the orchard and ran into Antikas’s mother-in-law waiting for him in the sunlight, the princess had briefly thought this woman was the “daughter” Antikas had mentioned.

Her hair was the same striking, dazzling gold, tied into two low ponytails that hung down her back. Her face still had a childlike innocence, and she was even shorter than the little Angel. It was hard to connect her with the role of “mother.”

And whether you looked at her smile or her eyes, they both practically screamed “innocent.” She felt nothing like little Mo or Ciella, those fully grown lolis who just happened to look like children.

Most importantly, the sight of a handsome older guy over 1.8 meters tall carrying a tiny girl—practically a loli—on his back made it pretty hard to think of them as a married couple. It looked more like an older brother carrying his little sister!

What? You can connect the dots?

You say that, and suddenly the good old boys in blue are wide awake.

“Um, sorry to interrupt, but…”

She just couldn’t stop wondering about it. Even though she knew the important thing right now was to keep Aya from meeting these two, Tiran couldn’t help turning around to ask the question that had been bothering her for ages.

“Have you… really had a child already?”

“Mm-hmm, that’s right.”

Her innocent expression showed no sign that she was lying.

“We’re Dragons, after all. We’re a little different from humans.”

“So this appearance is the result of a transformation spell?” Tiran blinked.

“You could call it a transformation spell, but it’s just the most basic kind of ‘transformation.’”

Dragons are born with the ability to transform into other creatures. It’s slightly different from a transformation spell learned later in life: an innate transformation reflects how a Dragon’s physical attributes would translate into the body of the species they’ve changed into.

For example, Aya’s current human appearance is what other Dragons consider beautiful. His build, facial features, and everything else correspond directly to his Dragon form.

…So, in Dragon form, is Aya also a little heartbreaker in the eyes of other Dragons?

The princess fell into deep thought. Damn it, why did she suddenly feel threatened?

“Oh! This is the estate ‘closest to the mountaintop’! Miss Tiran, do you live here?”

The road wound up the mountain. The buildings around them grew sparser, and the air cooler. Before long, the three of them arrived at an imposing gate built from great blocks of polished mountain stone and white iron.

A grand, luxurious gate like this looked a little out of place in a spot so close to nature’s beauty, but it certainly showed off the owner’s wealth.

That didn’t stop the princess from thinking the gate looked pretty tacky, though…

“Uh, I did the owner of this place a favor, so they lent me a villa to stay in while I’m on vacation.”

“Wow! Honey, honey, did you hear that? Miss Tiran gets to live in there!”

Ruko glanced at her husband with shining eyes, sounding quite envious.

“Um, if you want to stay here, Uncle Antikas, you should be able to register at the front desk. I remember them saying it’s open to the public and welcomes tourists.”

Tiran ran a hand through her hair. She wasn’t quite sure how to handle her mother-in-law’s completely unguarded, pure envy.

“We could, sure. The only problem is that we can’t afford it…”

Antikas shrugged, looking rather helpless.

“Can’t afford it? How? Don’t Dragons all have tons of treasure?”

The princess was surprised. Aya, whom she’d knocked out with a single sword strike and dragged home, had still been carrying a bag of valuable old gold coins. Surely his parents couldn’t be poor, could they?

“Dragons aren’t actually that rich…” Miss Ruko looked a little downcast. “We just like shiny things, but gold and jewels aren’t the only things that shine. We’ll happily take things like quartz, even though they’re not worth much. Most of the ‘mountains of treasure’ in human legends are just an impressive sight, really.”

That was right. Humans were the ones who occupied most of the continent’s land and resources. They mined precious metals in huge quantities and turned them into currency, so it wasn’t as if Dragons had the means to collect that much treasure.

“We did have quite a bit saved up, but we’ve been traveling for over a hundred years. We spent money way too freely before, so things are a little tight now. We have to rein in expensive places like this estate…”

“Honestly, you’re the one who said this trip was all about enjoying ourselves, and that we shouldn’t hold back…”

“I didn’t realize the human world would be so expensive.” Antikas looked helpless, his eyes seeming to lament how hard life as a Dragon could be.

Good grief, had her in-laws really just spent over a hundred years traveling around and throwing money around?

Their wealth was pretty impressive, in a way. Too bad they hadn’t tried investing it. If they’d found some little kingdom and backed a faction, with a Dragon’s resources and wealth, staging a coup and seizing power would’ve been a piece of cake. Put a puppet king on the throne, fight a few wars to expand the territory, and use a little common sense to pass laws and such—taxes and war reparations would come pouring in like a river, wouldn’t they?

“As expected of me…”

The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous it got. The princess quickly patted her cheeks. Stay calm. We need to be positive and look on the bright side. It’s fine to just think about this stuff.

With Tiran there, the three of them entered the estate without any trouble.

“If you run out of savings, Uncle Antikas, are you still planning to travel?”

“Of course. If we run out of savings, we’ll just figure out how to earn more.”

Antikas replied as if it were only natural. Then, as though he’d just remembered something, he grinned proudly. “It’s easy to spend money in the human world, but earning it isn’t that hard either.”

Apologize to all the workers stuck on 996 and 007 schedules! If making money were that easy, we wouldn’t need to string the capitalists up from lampposts!

…Ahem, sorry. Got sidetracked again.

The princess shook her head again and casually asked, “Oh, really? Do you have some good way to do it? I’d like to earn a little extra myself…”

“That’s easy. For example… there’s a festival going on in the town down the mountain these days. You can win prizes by getting high scores in the games…”

“I actually went and played those. There’s always some guy who beats my score, though. I— huh?”

“Uh…” Antikas fell silent for a second, then looked away.

So it was you?!!!