I didn’t know what poison they were using, but I could feel it instinctively: we had to protect a Dravergh’s heart. It was a precaution carved into my subconscious after living through everything with Varen.
Belgard closed his eyes again at my words and began to focus. A faint silver light seeped out from her palm.
The dark purple that had been stretching along Ordin’s veins toward his heart stopped. It couldn’t pierce the silver light Belgard had produced—it only writhed around it.
"Protecting the heart only keeps the thread of life hanging for now. We need to pull that bug bastard out of the body."
Belgard clicked her tongue and knitted her brow.
As she said, the silver magic was only a stopgap. We needed an antidote that could draw the toxin out.
I hurriedly looked around. Most of the dragons lying there had the same symptoms. Only the strike location differed—every case was the poison spreading through the body, aiming for a dragon’s heart.
The patients kept increasing, and the healers were too few. Ordin only had two healers on him because he was king; most of the wounded were dying helplessly, with no one able to do anything for them.
"Ceryl! How could you leave me alone and go off like that?!"
Then a voice as sharp and ringing as Neira’s cut through the chaos of the cavern.
I snapped my head up. Kallen—face red with anger—was stomping toward me, huffing. Even while evacuating in a panic, she’d still managed to pack her things [N O V E L I G H T] neatly.
The moment I saw the backpack in Kallen’s hands, it felt like a tangled knot inside me came undone. The darkness in front of my eyes seemed to brighten.
"Kallen! Hurry, get over here!!"
Still looking like her anger hadn’t eased, Kallen stomped her way up to me. She puffed out her chest as if she’d loaded a whole barrage of scolding—and then went silent when she saw Ordin lying there.
"G-Goodness...."
Faced with a patient in a state she’d never seen, Kallen could only open and close her mouth soundlessly. I pulled her down to sit beside me immediately.
Once I’d realized it was poisoning, my mind had automatically started reaching for modern medical knowledge—how to get an antidote, whether dialysis was possible, and so on.
But with a living plant encyclopedia sitting next to me, I was reminded again that this was a fantasy world.
Staring at Kallen’s backpack, I spoke to Belgard.
"Even poison made by humans would’ve been brewed by mixing herbs. If that’s the case, there has to be an herb with an opposing effect."
There was no way a human army here was using modern pharmaceuticals. They must have mixed this world’s herbs together in various ways to make this poison.
So I could only hope the apothecary’s daughter had the right answer in her stock.
At my words, Belgard lowered her head and brought her nose close to Ordin’s rotting wound. She crumpled her face in disgust, but she still sniffed deeply.
"It stinks of rotten Dreikes. And there’s Blackmarrow vetch’s wicked scent mixed in, too."
With only smell, Belgard identified the herbs blended into the poison.
Naturally, none of it meant anything to me. But Kallen didn’t disappoint.
"Do you mean Blackmarrow vetch? The dark green vine?"
"You know what that is?"
"Yes. It’s a vine that causes paralysis. Skin poisoned by Blackmarrow vetch turns black and starts to smell like rot."
Everyone’s gaze returned to Ordin. Seeing the wound that resembled the symptoms Kallen had just described, Belgard let out a small sigh.
Kallen’s eyes sharpened with quick intelligence, and she immediately began rummaging through her backpack.
"Blackmarrow vetch should be countered by Soson leaf. I don’t have much, but I definitely packed some."
What Kallen pulled out was a plant with a fresh, fragrant scent. Tiny, pale-purple blossoms—no bigger than beans—clustered along it.
Belgard snatched the plant from Kallen’s hand at the speed of light, then held it beneath her nose and drew in a deep breath.
"Sss... huu... mm. Yes. This. This is it."
What exactly “this” meant, I had no idea—and she even shivered as if she were intensely satisfied. If you didn’t know better, it looked like the reaction of someone taking a drug.
She curled both hands into a circle and trapped the single Soson leaf blossom in her palms. Then she began to sway her upper body from side to side, riding a rhythm as if she were dancing.
Kallen pressed herself close to my side, shaken by one surprise after another. She swallowed hard, gripping the hem of my clothes tightly.
When Belgard stopped abruptly, as if the ritual was complete, she snapped her eyes open again. I found myself staring straight into those completely white eyes—still impossible to get used to.
A chill ran down my spine. I sucked in a useless breath, and Kallen actually hiccupped.
Belgard brought her clasped hands to her mouth. And just like when the possession had begun, she whispered something into her fists.
"Everyone, prepare."
Belgard dropped the words in a low, sunk voice. But that small voice rang violently inside the heads of every dragon in the cavern.
It was the same for me. It felt like when Varen spoke to me in his true form.
I didn’t know what she meant by “prepare,” so I obediently stepped back. But the dragons moved as one.
They stripped the clothes from the poisoned dragons and laid them down straight, positioning the affected areas so they faced upward.
When the preparations were complete, Belgard spread her tightly clasped hands wide. The moment she opened her arms, the cavern filled with flower-scent.
"My goodness... there was definitely only one blossom...."
Kallen breathed out in awe, watching flowers float gently through the air.
In Belgard’s hands, the herb had become hundreds of stalks, and the pale-purple buds—no bigger than beans—had become thousands.
The herbs filling the cavern drifted like spores, seeking out the dragons’ wounds. They took root in the skin that had been rotting away with a foul stink.
Amazingly, the herbs that had been bone-dry began to bloom with a faint smoke the instant they touched the affected areas.
With an herb effective against the poison and Belgard’s healing magic added on top, the two were creating synergy.
"Hh... hheoo...."
And Ordin—who had been coughing raggedly the entire time—let out a long, low exhale.
It sounded like air escaping from a balloon that had been tightly sealed.
Ordin’s breathing visibly stabilized. The dark purple veins faded, returning to their original color.
At that positive sign, the two healers sat even closer to Ordin. With both hands pressed to his body, they began pouring out a stronger light.
Belgard, who had been shivering in tiny tremors, let her spread arms drop.
Brinel exhaled in relief and bowed her head toward Belgard.
"Thank you so much, Belgard."
"Tsk. What a nuisance. Even at this age I can’t rest in peace, honestly."
Belgard grumbled with a thick dose of complaint. Her voice grew smaller and smaller, and then her head drooped.
I watched her anxiously. When her unsteady upper body finally pitched forward toward the ground, I reached out on reflex.
Right before her head could strike the floor, I caught Neira. I soothed my pounding heart as I looked down at her.
"Belgard? Or... Neira? Are you—ugh."
"Ordin!!!"
Neira, who had only shut her eyes for a brief moment, shoved me away and sprang up.
Her golden eyes were back, and so was her usual sharp way of speaking.
Without sparing a glance for me as I rolled on the ground, Neira rushed to Ordin. She cradled his face in both hands and let clear tears fall.
"Ordin, Ordin? Wake up. Please."
Without a moment to stop her, she kissed her husband.
Between their sealed lips, life force flowed out from Neira and into Ordin.
Varen’s mother was doing exactly what Varen had always done to me. Watching, I had to swallow an awkward smile.
After a long while, Neira finally pulled her lips away. Almost at the same time, Ordin’s eyelids trembled faintly.
Then long lashes fluttered, and blue eyes came into view.
"...Neira...."
"Ugh—Ordin!"
A thin voice called his wife’s name. Neira clung to Ordin’s exhausted upper body and burst into the sobs she’d barely been holding back.
Seeing the reunion of the two of them after they’d finally regained consciousness, the strength went out of me. Still kneeling, I let my hips drop with a thud and sagged.
Kallen—who had been just as tense as I was—also collapsed to the ground. Seeing sweat beaded across her young face, I let out a small snort of laughter.
"Good work, Kallen."
"What did I even do?"
"You did something huge."
As I said it and looked around, Kallen’s gaze followed.
Dragons who had been on the verge of dying just minutes ago were all awake now. Kallen’s herbs and Belgard’s magic combined had saved them.
The healers who’d been running frantically glanced toward Kallen. The patients who’d just come to also cast quick looks her way.
For the first time, Kallen was receiving something like goodwill from dragons who had always looked down on humans. Maybe it felt awkward—her ears turned red all the way to the rims.
I gave the back of Kallen’s head a gentle pat. Then, finally able to breathe, I swept back my sweat-soaked hair.
