I stared at Drunkard in awe. With a gaunt face, he wiped the cold sweat running down his forehead, then waved a hand at Bell.
Bell opened another liquor bottle from one corner of the warehouse and pressed it into his hand again.
Maybe it was because he looked so sickly. Watching Drunkard drink like it was water, I found myself worrying without meaning to.
"Um, you don’t look well. Is it really okay to keep giving you alcohol?"
"He can’t use magic unless he’s drunk."
"Ah...."
Trading magical ability for liver function. At this point, I almost respected his willingness to sacrifice.
Unlike me, sitting there genuinely moved, Bell looked troubled.
"After he opens one set of bars, he has to rest for an hour. It takes too much mana and too much time. If the monsters would just stay awake, we could cut the time in half."
I looked at Drunkard again. His limbs hung limp from the wooden chair; it looked like recovery would take a while.
And there were still hundreds of monsters left waiting to escape. If their turn got pushed back too far, they might end up drained of every last drop of mana and shrivel to death.
But no matter how anxious I felt, I didn’t have any sharp solution. People said I’d made a name for myself as a human who tamed monsters, but what I’d done at the Facility wasn’t anything special.
I’d just made sure the kids ate, tended to what hurt, and given them the most basic care.
I cautiously reached a hand toward the monster that had just been freed from the bars.
The yellow cheese kitten with a tail about fifty centimeters long had coarse, dull fur, and its ribs stuck out in hard ridges.
"Bell, did they get anything to eat?"
At my words, Bell thumped her chest like she was suffocating with frustration.
"The monsters won’t eat. They’re all dried out, but they won’t even touch food. Not even once."
Something about the word “food” gave me an unpleasant jolt of déjà vu. When I looked again, there were sliced bits of sausage rolling around inside the cheese kitten’s cage.
My expression tightened, the same way it had at the Fifth Monster Management Facility, and I turned back to Bell.
"We don’t have enough to eat ourselves, but we can’t starve the monsters we went through hell to save."
"...Right...."
But with worry and determination tangled across her face, I couldn’t bring myself to spit out a curse.
***
"Kallen, is this all the sugar we’ve got?"
"That’s everything. I had to be really careful to get even this much."
"Tch. Can’t be helped. At least we’ve got enough salt."
"But what are you going to do with this?"
"What do you think? We’re waking the kids up."
Back when Varen and I were trapped in the warehouse at the black market, seeing them bound in iron chains had been so shocking that I hadn’t been able to properly take in what the monsters looked like.
Now that I could examine them one by one in a relatively brighter place, most of them were in a state of collapse from malnutrition. The Fifth Monster Management Facility had fed them something bizarre, but at least it hadn’t starved them. The black market was rotten even among rot.
Worse, a few of them looked like they’d been whipped—long, shallow wounds that had festered, heat rolling off their bodies.
Drunkard decided to start with the kids whose condition was the most urgent. It made my stomach twist, like I was using a frail old man for labor, but—
"Huuuh... it’s been a while since I’ve had that young vigor packed in tight... feels like the strength’s coming back...."
He sniffed at the air and made a sound so creepy my skin crawled. Even so, he didn’t stop for a second, pouring mana into cages and pulling out the critical cases one after another.
Me, Kallen, and Margon—and Bell, too. We ran ourselves ragged for the sick and starving monsters.
But Bell still whispered at my side with a suspicious look.
"Do you think water is really enough? They’re dried out like that...."
"The most dangerous thing you can do in exhaustion is dump in a huge amount at once. If you suddenly push high-calorie food into a body that’s been starving for a long time, it can make things worse. And human food has too much salt for them."
"Ah... I see. I just thought giving them something good would help, and I...."
Bell’s shoulders sagged, her face crumpling.
If this were my old world, I would’ve torn into her and told her ignorance is a crime. Instead, I just patted her drooping shoulder a couple of times and left it at that.
"Right now, hydration comes before food."
"But they’re all passed out. They can’t even drink."
"That’s why we have to give it to them."
The fastest, most effective treatment would’ve been hooking them up to IV fluids. But adapted as I was to living without modern conveniences, I found a second-best option fast.
First, I mixed a small amount of sugar and salt into a bucket of warm water to make an electrolyte solution. After I stirred until no granules remained, I dipped out cups one by one.
Kallen brought back a whole stack of oil-coated paper from the kitchen—the kind that wouldn’t get soggy. She rolled each sheet into long, thin tubes to make improvised straws.
"All right, everyone, gather up. Watch closely and do exactly what I do."
Kallen, Margon, and Bell. They clustered around me, their eyes serious and focused.
I carefully slid the improvised straw between the monster’s lips. I aimed for the space between the back teeth and seated it precisely. Then I let the lukewarm water trickle in, painfully slow—one drop at a time.
As the water began to go down their throats, the monsters slowly started to come around. Some smacked their tiny lips, fussing like they wanted more.
After seeing my demonstration, the three of them scattered and began feeding electrolyte water to the monsters. When someone fumbled and panicked because they couldn’t get the straw into a snout with their clumsy hands, the others helped like seasoned assistants.
"Hiyung! Hiyung, hiyung!!"
Rami slipped through shadows into a cage and smacked a limp monster’s forehead over and over.
When the exhausted monster weakly lifted its head, Rami used her small hands to force its tiny mouth open. That gap was enough to jab the tip of the straw in fast.
"Myaa... mya, myaang...."
Miya slid through the narrow gap between iron bars. With her slender body, she wrapped around the sagging monster and pried its mouth open, then used her flexible tail to hold the straw in place.
With not a single person getting a moment’s rest, people who’d heard the news started coming to the tent. They were the ones who’d been stealing curious glances at me earlier.
"Is there anything we can do to help?"
To the eye they looked like ordinary, decent citizens, but they were all members of the Rebels. It was obvious each of them was hiding their abilities.
Still, to me, they looked less like a concealed army and more like emergency responders rushing into a major disaster.
"Perfect timing. Take one straw each, slide it between the bars, and feed them this water. And do you have plain chicken breast? Not sausage or anything like that. If you don’t, eggs are fine. For hay, grind it completely into powder and mix it into water."
When I rattled everything off in my excitement, they split up roles on their own and moved quickly. Once about twenty people were on the ground, more and more monsters started to wake after getting water and food.
And Bell’s request—to wake them—hit the mark exactly.
Drunkard, who had to strain himself every time he opened a cage for a dying monster, started tearing through the cages of monsters who’d regained consciousness like he was opening shipping crates.
As I scanned the scene, I walked over to a man struggling in front of a cage. He was fighting to get the straw between a monster’s lips.
I took the straw from him and demonstrated myself.
"It doesn’t work well if you try from the front. In cases like this, go from the side of the snout—like this—and slide it between the back teeth."
"Wow. As expected. You really know monsters."
"Yeah. Well. I’ve fed a lot of them."
Inside the bars was a dog-shaped monster with blotchy spots. It had nine tails, but a dog was still a dog.
It was the kind of animal I’d handled the most, so I slipped the straw into the gap between its teeth with practiced ease. The man watching me let out a dry laugh.
"Thank you. For saving the monsters."
That single sentence hit the back of my head like a blow. I almost burst into tears on the spot.
I turned to him with wide eyes, but he was already focused again, feeding the monster water.
"...No. I’m the one who’s grateful."
I left the words behind in a trembling voice, then hurried away.
I’d gone from the Fifth Monster Management Facility, where living monsters were treated like tools, to Zed’s tower, where they were used for experiments, to the black market, where monsters were sold like merchandise.
And he was thanking me for saving them.
It was the first time I’d heard those words from a human in this world.
Something hot surged up from deep inside my gut. It was the humanity in me—something I’d thought had dried out completely.
Honestly, I was glad I’d cheered for the Rebels back when I was just a reader. So what if they raided licensed districts? These were people who understood the value of cute living things.
I looked around the tent with eyes full of emotion. Now that I saw it clearly, the Rebels weren’t emergency responders. They were angels in white.
The tent, once quiet, turned into chaos. Voices of people trying to keep the monsters alive, cries from monsters barely waking after water and food, Drunkard’s voice groaning as he forced himself to work.
And on top of that—bloop, bloop—bubbles rising.
That strange sound, so out of place, suddenly pulled a presence I’d forgotten back into my mind.
I rushed toward the source. In one corner of the warehouse, a curtain had been drawn, and inside it was a tank isolated on its own.
Last time, the water had been clear. Now it was churning with bubbles.
"Princess...."
"You traitor! You said you’d come save me!!"
The mermaid’s sharp voice stabbed ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) straight into my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my head away.
