Everything that happened after that unfolded in slow motion.
The ground where Noance had been sitting trembled, and a hand suddenly shot out from the ashes he had been touching. It looked exactly like a corpse crawling up out of a grave.
That hand seized Noance's arm tightly, like someone grabbing a lifeline. Startled, Noance sprang to his feet, and the figure that had hidden itself underground finally revealed itself.
"Lady Adeline!"
Even after seeing Adeline's grotesque appearance, Noance cried out her name in joy.
Her whole body was scorched, yet Adeline's physical form itself looked intact. Instead, most of the dozens of insects that had risen from her back had lost their shape, leaving only two or three.
Only then did I realize what that unrecognizable lump of charcoal left in Adeline's place had really been.
The Sarco had severed its own limbs, thrown them into the pillar of fire, and hidden its main body underground to avoid the dragon's attack.
As the situation everyone had thought was over suddenly resumed, shrill screams burst out from every direction.
"Noance!! Get away!!!"
Even if I screamed from dozens of meters away, my voice would never reach him.
And the insects, only two or three of them left, began wrapping themselves around Noance's body.
"Oh my, thank you for coming. I was just thinking this body has become unusable now."
The monster wearing Adeline's face lifted the corners of ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) its mouth as if delighted while locking eyes with Noance. It looked as though it meant to abandon its tattered current host and move into a new body.
And yet, strangely, Noance did not move a finger. Noance specialized in close combat. If it was him, he should have been able to slice apart a half-burned, weakened insect like that with ease. Instead, he docilely offered up his body to the insect winding around him.
The ones trying to help him were the Rebels surrounding them. Anyone with a sword ran straight toward Noance without hesitation, and even an archer a few paces behind was already drawing the bowstring.
"Don't shoot!!!"
Noance screamed at the people trying to save him, his voice ragged with desperation. At that, the Rebels holding weapons faltered and stopped in their tracks.
After doing something that was no different from suicide, Noance looked at the monster wearing Adeline's skin. He even smiled faintly at it.
Has losing Adeline shocked him so badly that his mind has broken? It was one incomprehensible action after another.
At the center of that space, where even the air seemed to have sunk under its own weight, Noance opened his mouth in a strangled voice.
"I don't know what you really are... but let Lady Adeline go. And come to me instead."
Noance grabbed the insect crawling up his body in his own hand. Instead of tearing it away, he pressed it against his own neck as though telling it to go ahead and devour him.
At that, Adeline's face twitched. It looked as though it was trying to grin, but the charred skin could not form a proper smile.
Even while staring straight at that hideous shape that could no longer be called human, Noance still could not let go of hope. At that point, it was less hope than sheer lingering attachment.
"Oh ho ho, this is the first time a human has ever called for me first."
"Lady Adeline is still... still in there, right? Isn't she?"
"......"
The monster, which had been smirking as it answered Noance, suddenly fell silent.
When the thing wearing Adeline's face gave no reply at all, Noance looked as though he were about to cry, like a child who had lost his parents.
"Please, I'm begging you. Please let Lady Adeline go. She was, to me..."
Then Noance's words faded before they could finish.
The things that had been coiling tightly around Noance's body a moment ago were suddenly sliced apart, spraying out blackened, charred fluid.
At the same time, Morpha caught Noance's body lightly as it lifted into the air, then twisted their face into a deep scowl.
"Have you lost your mind? Even if the Sarco moved into you, a host that's already been eaten won't come back to life!"
Holding Noance around the waist from behind, Morpha retreated away from the Sarco.
Caught in Morpha's grip, Noance flailed his arms and legs in midair, his unfocused gaze fixed on Adeline's shape.
"Let go! Lady Adeline is still there! I saw it!!"
But a human with such a small frame could not overpower a dragon's strength. With Morpha holding him fast, he could do nothing but struggle in place, unable to take even a single step forward.
The Sarco, now stripped of even its remaining insects by Morpha's attacks, swayed on its feet. It only muttered to itself as though in pain, clawing at its own hair.
"Blood... I need more blood... if I only have blood... ahh, hungry.... Hungry...."
The area around the monster was in chaos. Between the murmuring voices of the crowd and Noance's shrill screams, that snake-like voice was easily drowned out.
The Sarco's words reached only my ears in full. And along with them, that sickening sensation of insects crawling beneath the ground came back to life.
But I was not afraid anymore. When it had been some unknown, nameless thing, my whole body had trembled in terror. Now, I could stay calm.
I gently laid the sleeping Varen down on the ground and raised my upper body.
Quick-witted Kallen noticed the cold shift in my mood and drew the sword at her waist.
Even the sound of my own breathing felt like an obstruction, so I let out a long breath, then held it. I closed my eyes and focused every nerve I had.
Crkrrk. Crunch. Crkrrk.
The sound of something splitting through the earth crept steadily closer. Morpha noticed a beat too late and whipped around to look at me.
"Lord Varen!"
I moved one step faster than the insect bursting up from the ground in front of Varen.
As it gaped its maw wide and lunged for the dragon, I snatched it out of the air with both hands and clamped down with all my strength.
"Got you! You filthy bug bastard!!"
The grotesque screams it let out as it twisted its whole body felt like the final thrashing of something on the verge of death.
Between the four-petaled mouth torn open like a split flower, a long narrow tongue flicked out like a snake's. I was the one holding it, yet that greedy tongue still strained desperately to reach Varen somehow.
For an instant, the scene from a few minutes ago overlapped before my eyes. Varen with his palm bitten by Adeline, his blood being sucked out.
"Ghh... you motherfucker! You don't get a single drop of blood from him!!"
I gripped the insect's body with both hands as though it were the Sarco itself by the throat and shook it with all my strength.
Just when it was becoming hard to keep holding onto the insect as it writhed in its final struggle, Kallen's sword cut through the air with perfect timing.
"Die, you monster!"
"Kiiieeek-!!"
The severed insect burst apart in a spray of black fluid. Kallen shrieked and jumped back when the filthy liquid splashed onto her clothes, and I hurled the remains in my hands as far into the forest as I could.
"Haa... haa, just stop already!"
I shouted at Adeline, who was still swaying on her feet, my voice thick with irritation.
She paid no attention to my voice at all and twisted her body at a grotesque angle. She bent with the flexibility of a rubber doll that had no bones left in it, then finally collapsed with a heavy thud.
At the sight of the woman dropping to her knees and pitching forward, every human there held their breath. But from the back of that blackened, charred woman, insects she had hidden away as a last resort burst out.
"Aaaah! Run!!"
"Shoot! Shoot them! That isn't Lady Adeline!!"
The Rebels stumbled back in panic and terror.
But the newly emerged insects did not spare a glance for the humans. They headed straight for one place without hesitation.
"Uuh... if not, then even monsters... I have to, eat... eat...."
At that voice, like sharp stones scraping against each other, my heart dropped hard.
The Sarco's final prey was the monsters still inside the tent. It had given up on dragon flesh and was trying to restore its dying body by feeding on monster meat instead.
The insects were moving faster than I could ever reach the tent on foot. Morpha was still restraining the struggling Noance.
None of the Rebels, shocked half senseless, realized that the insects were targeting the monsters.
But I could not just stand there and watch the monsters be slaughtered. Clenching my teeth with the determination to save even one of them, I kicked off the ground.
"The monsters! The monsters are in danger!!"
"Ghk!!"
My shout and the Sarco's groan overlapped at the same time.
The insects flying toward the tent slammed into an invisible transparent wall with a loud crash. In a single collision, they lost every last bit of strength and dropped limply to the ground.
Though I had done nothing, I fought to calm my ragged breathing and stared at the tent with trembling eyes.
Through the burnt cloth, which had lost most of its shape in the fire, someone staggered out with unsteady steps.
"Guh... hhk! Good grief, good grief, what a racket...."
Drunkard was hiccuping, a bottle of dragon liquor still clutched in one hand.
He threw his head back and drained every last drop left in the bottle. Then he spread both arms toward the sky and laughed boisterously.
"Uahahaha! I can feel the strength surging, strength! All hail Dravergh!!"
At that sudden drunken outburst, everyone turned to stare at him with baffled faces.
Even then, the insects that had fallen after hitting the transparent wall kept wriggling across the ground, searching for an opening.
Only then did Drunkard turn to face them, his eyes covered by the white cloth.
"Tsk, tsk. Looks like I really have gotten old. Imagine only now noticing bugs crawling around at my feet."
