"Ahaha, I did tell you I had no intention of facing a dragon, didn't I?"
A gentle voice laughed softly right behind me.
My face was drenched in liquid that might have been tears shed from the pain of my shattered hands and feet, or maybe cold sweat.
It felt like I would black out the moment I let my guard down, but I bit the inside of my cheek and tried to stay conscious.
Damn it, I ended up becoming dead weight for Varen again like this.
When I looked at Varen, blazing with rage yet unable to move rashly, the dirt filling my mouth tasted even more stale and bitter.
Varen was gritting his teeth with flames clenched in both hands. Forcing my fading mind into focus, I spoke in little more than a murmur.
"Varen, calm... calm down.... You have to... stay calm...."
If only I could send my voice directly into his head like a dragon at times like this. My throat was so raw no voice would come out properly.
Even so, Varen understood the broken words I managed to force out, and he let out a long breath. His broad chest rose and fell heavily, then the eyes he had squeezed shut snapped open.
The blue light blazing from them more fiercely than ever turned toward the thing behind me. I squeezed my eyes shut so I would not have to see that light.
"Ghk... what is this...."
"Ugh, I... can hardly breathe...."
The humans standing near Adeline staggered. All I could hear were the sounds of labored breathing and the muffled groans of people struggling for air.
On top of that, maybe the dragon’s eyes really did have a clear effect, because even the insect constricting my body started moving more slowly.
"My, dragons really are dangerous beings. I can’t even move."
But Adeline’s words, so meekly admitting difficulty, made my brow tighten.
No matter how I thought about it, the thing behind me was no ordinary creature. According to Varen, it had taken Adeline’s body long ago and founded the organization called the Rebels alongside her.
After moving so methodically all this time, it attacked a dragon while leaving itself this exposed? Why in the world...
"Cough... khk, haaah...."
My dulled mind could no longer string proper thoughts together. I did not even have the strength left to scream, and only rough breaths leaked from my mouth.
I could feel Varen growing frantic as he watched me withering away in real time.
The dragon’s familiar breathing turned ragged, and his heavy feet stamped the ground twice in place.
And then, very faintly, I heard the sound of insects crawling underground again.
"Hoho, I really can’t move at all. Hmm, at this rate, I might just die at the dragon’s hands."
Even in the middle of all this, I could feel that subtly excited voice behind my head.
The sound of the insect crawling underground was gradually moving farther away, and its target was obvious.
My vision was blurry through tear-soaked eyes. No voice came from a throat clogged with dirt.
With a body that could not even shout a warning to Varen, I forced out the last of my strength. I snapped up the head that had been hanging limp like a doll with its strings ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) cut and hurled it backward with all the force I had left.
"Ah!"
The back of my head struck Adeline square in the face, and a short cry burst out.
It was not a proper attack, but at least it stopped the insect headed for Varen, if only for an instant.
"Ghk, don’t try any tricks!"
The moment the crawling insect faltered, Varen noticed the presence approaching through the ground and swung one arm wide.
It was as if an invisible blade had swept past, carving a long horizontal mark and gouging the ground deep open. Every time Varen slashed his hand through empty air, the earth split apart as though it had been hacked to pieces.
And each time, bizarre cries rang out from beneath the ground.
"Kiiieeeek-"
The things writhing underground could not easily approach Varen’s brilliant aura. Instead, with harsh scraping sounds like tunneling, they were retreating toward Adeline again.
Varen did not intend to miss that moment. As if staking everything on it, he flew toward me once more with all his strength. This time, so he would not repeat the same mistake, his eyes were fixed on me.
"Don’t... come... hha...."
I muttered in a cracked voice.
The sight of Varen flying toward me made me feel relieved, and at the same time it made my chest collapse.
I hated how pathetic I was, always becoming Varen’s weakness. When I ground my teeth together, the torn inside of my cheek filled my mouth with the metallic smell of blood.
Just as expected, the moment Varen entered striking range, the things writhing in the air rushed toward one point. At the same time, more surged up from below, leaving no place to avoid them.
It looked as though they were trapping Varen inside a giant sphere, but he only frowned faintly.
When the dragon swung his arm in a great arc, bursts of flame sprang into existence all through the air at once. The fireballs, each about the size of a baseball, did not miss a single insect charging at him.
"Kieeeek-!"
The insects struck by the dragon’s flames caught fire easily. Like ropes soaked through with oil, they began burning from the tips and were consumed in an instant.
But most of them died out halfway without leaving even a scratch on Adeline’s body. Only a few of the insects burned all the way inward.
Just four flames that did not go out, no, four flames Adeline deliberately chose not to extinguish, settled onto my body instead.
"Khk!!"
With fire catching at my wrists and ankles, I could not even scream and only clenched my teeth.
The dragon’s fireballs, made solely for attack, were something no human could endure.
"Ceryl! No!!"
Having attacked me against his will, Varen’s eyes flashed as he ground his teeth hard. Then the flames burning over my body quickly vanished.
At the same time, Varen reached me and hastily wrapped one arm around my waist. The feel of the dragon’s embrace in that instant was so desperately dear it nearly brought tears to my eyes, but Adeline did not give me up so easily.
The insects coiled around my wrists and ankles tightened harder, crushing my bones. Crack. The hideous sound that rang out from inside my body echoed through my head.
"Aaaargh!!!"
In the end, I screamed because I could not bear it anymore. But Varen only pulled me tighter around the waist once again.
"I’m sorry, Ceryl. I’m sorry."
Murmuring apologies to me, Varen tried to sever the insects binding my hands and feet. He swung his arm at the things that were now tearing into my flesh and burrowing in.
While Varen’s attention was caught by the dozens of insects, Adeline, who had been smacking her lips behind my back, split her lips into a wide grin.
"Ahh, that looks delicious!"
No longer bothering to hide what it was, the monster let out a voice so shrill it felt like it would tear my ears apart.
Adeline opened her mouth at an angle far beyond what a human body should allow and lunged at Varen without hesitation.
Varen blocked the woman’s face rushing straight at him with his free hand. Stopped by the dragon’s palm, Adeline made hard clacking sounds with her teeth, like a wild animal trying to bite through him.
"Ugh, damn it...."
"Just one bite, just! One bite!!"
With my frail human body between them, the dragon and the monster wrestled in a contest of strength.
In the middle of that taut struggle, where neither side yielded, I felt something so shocking it nearly made me lose the fragile hold I still had on my mind.
At the cold scent, I turned my head to the side and saw Adeline’s teeth pierced through Varen’s palm. The dragon’s body, which most weapons could not leave so much as a scratch on, was spurting blood as if it had been punched through by an awl.
"You damned little insect bastard! Give Ceryl back!!"
"Mmm, mm, delicious. Mmm, mm."
Wearing Adeline’s face, it began sucking greedily at Varen’s blood with loud slurping sounds.
But even while giving up the blood from his palm, Varen did not let go of me.
In the end, with no reason left in me at all, I shook my head wildly and cried out in desperate anguish.
"Go! Get away from here, Varen!! Go!!!"
Even at my scream, Varen could not easily retreat, and he hesitated. Instead, without realizing it, he tightened the arm holding my waist.
At that, Adeline stretched several more insects out at Varen as if to make a show of it. The ones that wound around my waist while dodging Varen’s arm tightened hard, and this time there came a crack from my ribs as bone slipped out of place.
With my face gone deathly white, I could not even scream. Only when he saw my mouth opening soundlessly around a breath that would not come did Varen loosen the arm around my waist and step back.
"Damn it! Damn it!!"
Realizing that any struggle between them would only break my body further, Varen spat out the curse harshly.
After putting some distance between himself and me, he slashed his hand irritably, and the insects that had been eyeing him for a chance fell from the air in a flurry.
From the sharply severed cross-sections of the insects dripped not blood, but filthy brown fluid.
Even though part of its body must have been cut away, Adeline’s voice did not waver in the slightest. If anything, it let out a deeply satisfied laugh.
"Hmm, better than I expected. To think it would taste this good."
My hands and feet were burned, and the bones inside my body had shattered everywhere.
I wanted to lose consciousness and let it all end, but I spat out the mixture clogging my mouth, thick with dirt and blood.
Only then did my throat open enough for me to speak, my voice ragged and scraped raw.
"Haa... what... are you...."
It was a useless question even as I asked it. There was no reason for a monster to obediently reveal what it was, and even if I knew, it was not as though I could deal with it.
Its target was obviously Varen. Even so, I needed to know whether it intended to steal a dragon’s heart, and if so, whose orders it was acting under.
"Mm, I’m nothing special. One of the dragon’s legs is more than enough for me."
But that gentle voice said something even more horrifying than claiming to be one of the King’s subordinates.
