Kallen had bravely stood against the monster with the sword she had received from the dragon, only to be struck by the insect and sent flying in the end.
If she had been hit by something strong enough to crush my bones, then a small, fragile girl like her would surely have...
"Ceryl! Ceryyl!!"
Just then, a bright, familiar voice rang out, trampling all over my worry as if to mock it.
Kallen was running toward me, her sooty face and messy orange hair bouncing wildly.
I wanted to greet her with a bright smile, but my face twisted miserably instead. Every time I shut my eyes, thick streams of water spilled down.
Kallen reached me in no time, gasping for breath as she dropped to the ground.
"Hhk... ngh, Kallen... you..."
"Ceryl, are you okay? Look at me! Where, where does it hurt?!"
"Ghhk... you little brat... who, ngh, told you to use a sword like that so recklessly...?"
"Which one of us was in more danger for you to be saying that?!"
Far from being hurt, she shouted at me in a voice even livelier than usual. Then she dumped out everything from the backpack she had been carrying on her back.
It was full of the gifts Brinell, the dragon's healer, had given us when we left Beljena.
Kallen hurriedly grabbed the medicines one by one and checked the labels. Maybe the dragon's handwriting was hard to read, because she furrowed her brow and squinted hard at them.
Morpha, who had been quietly watching, stepped in to help.
"Give him this one to drink, and apply this one over the broken bones."
"Oh, yes! Do you happen to have anything we could use for splints?"
"...Splints?"
"Wooden boards to hold the injuries still! If broken bones set the wrong way, it'll be a disaster!"
A helpless laugh escaped me at the sight of Kallen putting the medical knowledge I had taught her to such good use. But even that tiny shake of my upper body sent a hacking pain through my wrists.
Under the fierce stare of the round-eyed girl, Morpha looked troubled.
"We... do not have anything like that."
"If you don't have any, you could've just said so right away. Why were you hesitating?"
"No. I mean it isn't necessary. The medicine will be enough."
Even while glaring at Morpha with obvious suspicion, Kallen opened the lid of the medicine bottle he had handed her.
Inside the thin glass vial was a pale orange liquid of unknown identity. Kallen eyed the long bottle and divided it into four portions, dripping it little by little onto my wrists and ankles.
"...Gaaaaaah!"
"Eek! Ceryl, endure it! You have to endure it!!"
"Aaaagh! Hey, this isn't right! Aaaagh!!"
As if my throat [N O V E L I G H T] had never hurt at all, a scream ripped out of me before I could bear the pain.
I had never experienced it, but it felt like this must be what it was like to pour alcohol over skin stripped completely raw.
Every place the dragon's medicine touched felt as if it were sizzling and burning away. I wanted to thrash around, but Morpha and Kallen pinned down my upper and lower body as if to say I had no chance.
"Agh... ngh, hhk..."
Kallen climbed on top of my convulsing body, wracked by unbearable pain. Determination filled her baby-faced features.
"Ceryl. Pain is better when you get it over with all at once."
"...No. Wait, wait just a second, Kallen! Uhk..."
This time, a glass bottle was shoved upside down into my mouth. It was the potion Morpha had told her to make me drink.
The truth that medicine good for the body tasted bitter was apparently eternal, whether in the real world or a fantasy world.
"Mmph! Mmph!"
"That's it! Swallow it, Ceryl! Gulp!"
Grabbing my cheeks in one hand so I could not spit it out, Kallen ruthlessly poured the potion down my throat.
I had never tasted it before, but it must have been like downing a shot of iodine solution. The liquid was so bitter it numbed my tongue as it filled my mouth. I barely managed to swallow in time with Kallen's shouted, "Gulp!"
The dragon's potion burned its way down my esophagus, then ran wild the moment it hit my stomach. The uproar inside my guts snapped both my eyes wide open and made my consciousness flicker.
"Puhaah... cough, nghk... ahh..."
Only after she had forced me to swallow every last drop did Kallen finally pull the glass bottle out of my mouth.
As I kept making little spasmodic sounds like I was dying, Kallen tilted her head and glared at Morpha.
"Excuse me, Dragon. This really works, right?"
"Yes. There was no need to give him quite that much, though."
"Ah, damn it, how could you tell me that only now?!"
I wanted to tell her that she was the one asking far too late, but no words came out of my scorched throat.
At that moment, I realized just how grateful I should have been all this time for Varen healing me with his sweet saliva.
The tears streaming down my face would not stop, and I could only stare blankly into empty air. I could not tell whether the things drifting before my eyes were burnt ash or my soul scattering away.
But astonishingly, the pain began to fade before long. Whatever had been tearing through my insides spread from within me through my entire body, filling it with overflowing vitality.
I slowly steadied my breathing and twitched my fingertips. After moving all ten fingers, I went through the same process with my toes.
"...Haaah... at least the effect is undeniable..."
Only minutes ago, my whole body had ached as if a giant had stomped on every bone I had, but now energy rising from my core was surging through every inch of me.
I easily pushed myself upright into a sitting position and felt along my side, testing the state of my body.
Then Kallen, whose eyes had been shimmering with emotion, threw herself into my arms.
"Ceryl! I really thought you were going to die this time!"
I gave the crown of her head a rough pat, then pushed at her small shoulders.
Maybe it was because I had just taken a brief tour of hell, but I could not bring myself to thank Kallen.
Only after I finally caught my breath did the scene around me come into view. The towering pillars of fire had subsided, but the embers the dragon had left behind were not easy to extinguish.
The remaining Rebels were throwing water around to keep the embers from spreading. And several of them had gathered at the place where the largest pillar of fire had burned.
The place they had headed toward was Adeline's corpse. Above the black, charred lump that still smoldered, a long column of white smoke wavered upward.
"Lady Adeline..."
Then Noance appeared without making the slightest sound and murmured in a daze.
Still seated on the ground, I raised my head and looked up at him.
His face, already pale to begin with, had gone bloodless as he stared fixedly at the pale smoke rising into the air.
Whatever Adeline's true nature had been, Noance had followed her like a mother. Yet after being gone for only a few hours, he had returned to find nothing left of her but blackened ashes.
I rubbed a bitter hand over my face and looked at Morpha.
"Morpha, you knew, didn't you? What that thing was."
"Not exactly. But I did know it would reveal itself if Noance and I left our posts."
"Why?"
"It's simple. The only ones here capable of harming it were Noance and me, and what it wanted was Lord Varen."
Morpha spoke in a detached voice as they brushed themselves off and stood up.
I shifted where I sat and moved to Varen's side. I lifted his head from the ground and placed it on my lap, brushing back his long blond hair damp with sweat as I examined his face.
Then I took the hand Adeline had bitten. The wound had already healed, but the unease clinging to me did not fade.
"That thing... was after Varen. It said it wanted to eat dragon meat."
The moment I repeated Adeline's words in my own voice, goosebumps broke out all over me again, and nausea surged up.
Before I knew it, I had pulled Varen's upper body closer into my arms.
"That thing is a Sarco. I had only ever read about it in records myself. This was my first time seeing one in person."
At the unfamiliar term, I lifted my head.
Morpha turned not to me but to Noance as they continued explaining.
"A Sarco is a natural lifeform that grows by feeding on thoughts. No one knows when it was born or how it came to be, but it is said to have existed since ancient times."
"......"
"It is a being that craves flesh and blood by nature. There is no reason behind it. It endlessly switches hosts to satisfy its instincts. At times, it even makes use of the intelligence and memories it acquires from those hosts."
"...Hosts?"
Noance, who had been staring blankly at Adeline's charred remains, finally looked away. Then, in a trembling voice, he stammered out the rest.
"Th-then Lady Adeline... was..."
Noance had always been arrogant, but right now he looked like a child who had just lost his mother before his eyes. Not a single ray of light remained in the eyes of someone whose reason for living had vanished.
Even under that desolate stare, Morpha did not waver.
"Adeline must have become a Sarco's host a long time ago."
"But Lady Adeline... she saved me..."
"As I said, Sarcos make use of the intelligence and memories of their hosts. Hunting monsters alone would have been difficult, so it would have needed humans to capture monsters and bring them back instead. And when it gathered people under that pretext, the memories of Adeline, who hated King Laskar, must have influenced it."
Adeline had lost her entire fortune and her children to the King. Along with her rage toward him, she had also fallen into helpless despair at being unable to do anything on her own.
The monster that had taken over Adeline's body had used the remnants of her emotions that still lingered faintly inside.
The head of the organization that claimed to rescue monsters oppressed by humans and cried out for the dragon's liberation had, in truth...
"N-no... Lady Adeline was trying to save the monsters..."
"Didn't she tell you not to release them on the spot, but to keep them alive and bring them back?"
"......"
"Did you personally confirm that every monster you rescued was returned to the wild? Can you say for certain that none of them ever disappeared?"
