The closer we got to the cavern entrance, the more my heart pounded like it had gone insane. An anxiety I couldn’t explain seized me.
It had taken a long time just to get into the corridor, but forcing my way back out through countless dragons took even longer.
By the time we reached our destination after all that, the sight in front of me nearly made my legs give out.
The space that had already been chaotic had turned into a complete hellscape.
"Call anyone who can use healing magic! We don’t have enough hands!!"
"Bring them in after Humanization! Lay them down over here!!"
The gorge was dark because the sun hadn’t risen, but it was bright with the flames the dragons were breathing out. Even from inside the cavern, I could feel heat on par with lava.
And between those red fireballs, I saw familiar crossbows flying through the air. Thick as logs, dozens—no, hundreds—were drifting through the gorge.
The difference was that the tips of those crossbows looked black and rotten. They resembled the weapons that had threatened Varen, yet their shape was clearly not the same.
"What the hell is that...."
The crossbows I’d seen before hadn’t been able to pierce a dragon’s skin. The moment they made contact, a bomb detonated and delivered a physical shock—but that was all.
But the crossbows stubbornly tracking dragons now left injuries so dangerous that even being grazed forced a warrior to abandon the fight.
Those struck by them flew back to the cavern with everything they had left, and the moment they reached the area near the entrance, they lost consciousness in midair.
Those who had been waiting inside in Humanization rushed to their fallen kin and forcibly made them change form. Compared to a house-sized dragon, a smaller human body was easier to move—and easier to treat.
"Damn it! There are too many wounded!"
"Move them first! Don’t block the entrance!"
On one side of the plaza, in front of a collapsed pile of stone, dozens of dragons lay sprawled.
Those who could use healing magic sprinted busily between them. They looked too busy to even sit, but the number of patients pouring in was overwhelmingly greater.
Because of that, most of them were gasping and suffering without having received even a single touch of a healer’s hand.
Standing in the middle of the uproar, I curled my hands into fists. A high ringing buzzed in my ears, and nausea slowly climbed up my throat.
The Belzena War. Even reading those words in a book, I’d thought it sounded cruel.
But standing in the center of it, I could finally feel what printed letters had never made real.
Just how horrific war truly was.
Brinel and I headed first toward the nearest patient. A healer happened to be next to them, pouring healing magic into the patient’s side.
"Could you take the clothes off so we can see the injury?"
At my polite request, Brinel moved quickly. She didn’t use any tool at all—she only traced the fabric with her fingertips, and the dragon’s garment split open with a rip, exposing skin.
The patient’s condition matched what Brinel had described. The black, rotting area along the side was spreading wide, and though not a single drop of blood was coming out, a fishy stench of decay rose from it.
"We need to wipe the poison off first with clean water. And the injured area needs to be kept lower than the heart—to stop it from reaching the heart."
I gave rapid instructions for emergency treatment over a single patient. I pointed out where pressure needed to be applied, and explained how to secure the airway.
The dragon who had been casting healing magic looked at me with distrust. But after seeing the patient breathe more easily with nothing more than basic measures, they immediately began doing exactly what I’d said.
"Ordin! Ordin, get a hold of yourself!"
Neira had found her husband among the fallen and was holding him in her arms.
I moved to Ordin late and sat down beside him.
"Kuh... kuh-hhk, kuh-hhk...."
Ordin had both hands clamped over his abdomen as he hacked out a ragged cough. There was no blood and no visible wound on the outside, but his pallid face laid his pain bare.
Two dragons sat on either side of Ordin. They had their palms pressed to his abdomen, /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ pouring out a blue glow. I didn’t know the details, but it was clearly powerful healing magic.
"Haa... it won’t close, Neira."
"I think we need to call Belgard."
The two of them reported directly to Neira. I didn’t know who Belgard was, but it sounded like there was someone who could break this deadlock.
Everyone was frantically busy, so I raised a hand and volunteered.
"I’ll go call her. Who is Belgard?"
But what came back was Neira’s look of pure contempt.
She shook her head slowly, then took off the thin gown she was wearing and set it on the ground. After that, she sat cross-legged and brought both hands together in a circle in front of her mouth.
It looked like she was whispering into her fists.
I blinked, curiosity rising. Brinel, who had come over after me, sat down at my side and burst into laughter.
"She isn’t someone a human can call. She already returned to the Primeval Flame."
"Ah...."
“Returned to the Primeval Flame” was how dragons spoke of death.
That only made my curiosity deepen. Neira’s voice, whispering into her fists, grew heavier and firmer.
A moment later, she snapped her eyes open—and her pupils were nowhere to be seen. Only the whites remained, blank and pale.
"Ordin, you idiot bastard. What is this rotten stench?"
It was unmistakably Neira’s voice coming out of her mouth, but the way she spoke was unlike anything I’d ever heard.
"Tsk, tsk. You got played. And this idiot thought he could be king. Clumsy moron."
I forced my stiff neck to turn and checked the healers’ faces. They gave awkward smiles, then spoke toward Neira—whose tone had changed completely.
"Belgard, please help. With our power, we can’t heal Ordin."
"Heal what. You need to drive it out."
Pupils gone, and a tone like she’d become an entirely different person.
They said every dragon eventually awakened their own ability. I’d never bothered to wonder what Neira’s unique ability was.
Neira’s ability was to call in the spirits of dead ancestors. In a way, it was closer to possession.
"Let’s see. What kind of bug bastard is it."
Listening to a strange voice coming from a familiar face, I briefly thought of Margon.
Just the fact that he hadn’t pointed a sword at me right away—when I’d been wearing Ceryl’s face and acting differently—felt like something to be grateful for.
In the middle of it, Neira—no, Belgard—was muttering with one palm placed over Ordin’s abdomen. Then the clothes Ordin was wearing gradually turned transparent and vanished completely.
"......."
The area was loud enough to make my ears ache, but everyone surrounding Ordin fell silent. A brief stillness drifted through.
Ordin’s exposed upper body was hard like carved stone, but his entire abdomen—where his hands had been clamped—was already stained black.
A Dravergh’s skin in Humanization gave off a faint glow, like Varen’s. That made the contrast even sharper: against that pale, shining skin, the blackened rot stood out grotesquely.
Worse, Ordin’s state was more severe than the earlier patient’s. The affected area looked as if it meant to swallow his whole body. Dark purple veins, changed thickly in color, began at his abdomen and spread out toward his limbs.
The way it crawled outward in real time looked, as Belgard had put it, like a living bug.
My brows drew together on their own with impatience. A stifled mutter spilled out.
"This isn’t something emergency measures can fix...."
Belgard’s brow twitched as she looked my way. I couldn’t be sure she was actually looking at me without pupils, but I could feel the weight of it.
"Have you ever treated human poison?"
Belgard asked me in a rough tone. I bit down on my lip and shook my head.
I could only make a rough guess from symptoms. Even in my previous world, I’d had little experience treating truly lethal toxins.
With a heavy feeling in my chest, I looked at Ordin. Those dark purple veins wriggled as they spread, and it irritated me beyond endurance.
Because it really did look like something alive. And because it was tearing through Ordin’s body. That was why it bothered me.
And then a violent realization struck the back of my skull. Of course you stop a toxin from spreading through the body—especially to the heart. That was basic medical sense. That was why I hadn’t noticed while giving emergency instructions.
The dark purple that began in Ordin’s abdomen was riding every vein, aiming toward his left chest. It wasn’t spreading naturally through the body—it was tracing a route with a clear destination.
Human poison was targeting a Dravergh’s heart.
The moment I reached that conclusion in a single line, there was no time to hesitate. I seized Belgard’s wrist and dragged her hand up over Ordin’s left chest.
"We have to protect his heart. It’s aiming for a Dravergh’s heart."
