Chapter 233

Varen slowly lifted his eyelids. Only after seeing the black smoke rising from Kaldrok’s body did he finally let his raised hand fall.

I silently looked down at him. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he must have felt while burning Kaldrok’s heart. I couldn’t bring myself to offer empty comfort.

So instead, I sat beside him and held his hand.

Even that slight touch drew Varen’s gaze toward me.

“Thank you, Ceryl. For stopping me.”

“......”

I awkwardly rubbed the back of his hand with my fingertips and forced out a faint smile.

The surroundings had become even more chaotic because a dragon had suddenly dropped dead with its heart burned away. But the two of us looked only at each other, as though we were the last people left in the world.

After a moment, Varen gave a bitter smile.

“So this is what it feels like.”

“What is?”

“When there’s nothing you can do for one of your own except kill them yourself.”

At his words, memories from several months ago resurfaced.

Yellow hair that would never wake again.

In the end, I had been the one to end his suffering with my own hands.

How had Varen comforted me back then?

I think he had held my hand like this. Stayed beside me and shared his warmth.

I tightened my grip around Varen’s hand once more. He lowered his gaze weakly. Then a long, exhausted sigh escaped him.

“Haah... I’m tired.”

His beautiful eyes, the color of the sea, slowly drifted shut. Varen’s head tipped toward me.

He rested his forehead against my shoulder and breathed slowly.

My eyes widened at the sight of Varen abruptly shutting down like someone whose power had been completely drained. I hurriedly shook him in panic, but there was no response at all.

“...Wait. Did you pass out? Here? Right now?”

I frantically checked his condition. Rather than unconscious, he looked like he had simply fallen into a deep sleep.

A hollow laugh slipped out of me.

Well, it made sense.

He had nearly gone berserk before barely stopping himself, then remotely burned the heart of a dragon all the way over there.

Passing out from exhaustion wasn’t exactly strange.

Still...

“This situation feels weirdly familiar.”

I stared blankly around us.

For some reason, the situation reminded me of an old memory.

Right after escaping the Fifth Magical Creature Management Facility, when I’d had to move both the unconscious Varen and Kallen by myself.

But this time it was Varen, Morpha, and Podric.

Three unconscious dragons.

I’d already needed every ounce of my strength just to move one Varen.

And that wasn’t all. Berius was still asleep too, hidden beneath the transparent cloak.

Right... so now...

How exactly was I supposed to run away while carrying four grown men?

“Ceryl, they still haven’t noticed we’re here. Let’s escape while we can.”

“...Theo, you were here?!”

Thankfully, this time I wasn’t alone.

Theo, Crow, and more than ten rebel operatives each hoisted one unconscious dragon onto their backs.

For some reason, it felt like tears were about to spill out.

Just knowing I wasn’t alone in this hopeless situation filled my chest until it ached.

“Companions really are... a wonderful thing.”

“Ugh! Why— why the hell is this so heavy?!”

Theo didn’t answer my emotional revelation.

He was too busy swearing while trying to haul up Varen’s body, which felt like lifting a boulder.

I helped support Varen and glanced back over my shoulder.

Morpha and Podric seemed comparatively light. Two men were supporting them steadily from either side.

That settled it once and for all.

It wasn’t that dragons were heavy.

Varen was just abnormally heavy even among dragons.

“Lord Ceryl!”

At that moment, a familiar voice called my name.

When I turned toward the sound, I saw Margon arriving with the carriage.

Margon was hopeless at infiltration acting, and though he only had one arm, he was still the only true combatant assigned to this covert operation.

Because of that, he’d stayed behind alone to guard the carriage in case of emergency.

Seeing him arrive with perfect timing, I waved enthusiastically.

“Margon! How did you show up at exactly the right moment?”

“Th-that! What in the world is that dragon?!”

After leaping down from the carriage, Margon turned deathly pale and pointed frantically at the dragon collapsed over the royal palace.

He asked what the dragon was, but didn’t even wait for an answer.

Instead, he immediately grabbed my shoulders and turned me around repeatedly, roughly checking whether I was injured.

“Ow, ow. I’m fine, Margon. I’m not hurt.”

“At this rate, even ten lives wouldn’t be enough because of you, Lord Ceryl! I’m never going to die peacefully!”

“Why are you saying something so terrifying?”

“Do you have any idea how shocked I was when I suddenly heard dragon cries?! How did a dragon even appear in the capital in the first place...?”

“Shh. Let’s get in first. I’ll explain later.”

Margon still looked unhappy, but he eventually nodded in agreement.

With the help of the rebel operatives, we loaded the three unconscious dragons into the carriage.

Then, finally, I lifted the sleeping Berius onto my back.

In my haste, the transparent cloak slipped off his shoulders.

For a brief moment the king’s face was exposed, and Theo nearly jumped out of his skin before hurriedly covering him again.

Only after reacting instinctively did Theo start fiddling with the cloak in fascination.

“How does this even work? I’ve never seen an item like this before.”

“When has magic ever followed logic? Hurry up and get in. We need to run first.”

Once the four unconscious men were inside, the carriage was completely full.

The rebel operatives who weren’t injured promised they’d return to base by other means before quickly scattering.

The moment the doors closed, Margon immediately drove the carriage forward.

It sped away from the royal palace.

Theo and I stayed tense, staring out the windows as we kept watch.

People were running everywhere.

Half were rushing toward the burning main building to extinguish the lingering flames left by the dragon.

The other half were fleeing as far as possible from the dragon’s corpse.

While looking outside, my gaze drifted toward Kaldrok’s body growing farther away in the distance.

Flies had already begun swarming the body of the dragon that had lost its life.

I couldn’t bear to keep looking.

I shut the window and turned away.

Then I looked toward Podric, who was drenched in cold sweat and breathing in ragged gasps.

“...Haah...”

The first and last image I would ever have of Kaldrok was of him screaming in agony, drenched in blood as he died.

I had never seen his human form.

But maybe he resembled Podric.

I dragged a dry hand down my exhausted face and lowered my head.

How was I supposed to tell such a young child that his father had died trying to save him?

My chest already felt like it was being crushed.

***

When we had flown using dragon magic, the trip had taken barely an hour.

But with a carriage pulled by two horses, it took nearly half a day before we finally reached the rebel base.

It had been a fairly long journey, yet not a single one of the unconscious dragons woke up.

The same was true for Berius, who had been struck by magic.

Out of all of them, the one I worried about most was obviously Morpha.

With everyone’s help, we barely managed to lay them on a bed, but I could feel the flame of their life gradually fading.

I stared at Morpha with a dark expression.

I didn’t know what kind of weapon had injured them, but the bleeding from the wounds covering their body wouldn’t stop.

Their pulse had slowed.

Their breathing was growing weaker little by little.

“Tch. Even with my abilities, there’s nothing I can do. If it were external injuries, I could manage somehow, but their insides are completely shredded.”

Even the Drunkard, who had come rushing over after receiving my SOS, could only shake his wrinkled head.

The Drunkard had been our last hope.

But even he gave up on treating Morpha, saying there was no chance.

I bit down on my lip anxiously.

Right now, there was no way for me to heal Morpha.

We had already used every last drop of the dragon medicine brought from Belzena while treating the people injured during the battle with Adeline.

And human medicine couldn’t heal a severely wounded dragon.

No matter how much we tried to stop the bleeding, the blood wouldn’t cease flowing. And dragon skin, hard as stone, couldn’t be stitched closed with thin fishing needles.

If we could take them to Belzena, maybe they could still be saved somehow.

But even flying with Varen, Belzena was over a full day away.

Looking at Morpha, who seemed moments away from drawing their last breath, I swallowed back my tears and spoke.

“Dragons... dragons don’t die from something like this, so why...?”

Seeing Morpha so pale when they had always been our strongest support made tears gather in my eyes again and again.

I harshly rubbed at my burning eyelids.

The Drunkard listened to me, then looked down at Morpha with a dark expression.

“I know. Dragons are powerful magical creatures. Far beyond humans. But now that their vitality has nearly run dry...”

“Don’t just keep saying it’s difficult. We have to figure something out— some way to save them together. Please?”

“...I’m sorry. This isn’t an area humans can help with.”

The Drunkard’s voice was mercilessly cold, as though telling me we had no choice but to watch Morpha die like this.

Every word froze my heart solid.

In agony, I clawed at my own hair.

When I swore I would never lose another companion right in front of me again, dragons hadn’t been included in that promise.

The Drunkard wasn’t wrong.

Dragons were beings strong enough that they ordinarily didn’t need the help of insignificant humans.

Creatures capable of protecting themselves without my efforts.

And this was Morpha of all people.

Ever since we first met, they had never once failed to stand firmly beside us and protect us.

I had only ever received help from Morpha.

I had never once imagined that I would need to protect them, or that there would ever come a time when I could help them.

That was why seeing Morpha on the verge of death left me feeling even more helpless.

It felt as though the greatest pillar supporting me had collapsed all at once.

“Ugh... Ceryl...”

At that moment, Varen stirred on the bed beside us.

The instant he regained consciousness, he called my name as he slowly opened his eyes.