I couldn’t tear my eyes off the blue that met mine. Time stopped, and it felt like gravity lifted.
It was just like the first time I faced the dragon in the basement. The weight of encountering a presence no human could handle.
“Haah... ha, Ceryl....”
Varen’s grip slowly tightened. It didn’t hurt; the place he held just grew hot with it.
The dragon’s heat bled over, and my own body heated up. I went dizzy and hazy.
“...What am I supposed to do?”
The words jumped out without going through my head. If reason were working, I wouldn’t have asked that.
Not that instinct was intact either—if I kept on, something dangerous would happen. I ignored reason and instinct both. The only explanation was that this was the dragon’s magic.
“Ceryl Aylos... you...”
His mouth shaped my name and it felt like letters stuck to me. Heat bloomed through every corner of my body like fever flowers.
Our locked gazes didn’t break. Varen came closer, slowly, just like that.
With a dragon closing in, it was strange—I couldn’t push him away or dodge. My head went blank white; my sight went dark.
Hot flesh touched my stiffened lips. It went neither deeper nor farther away.
“No... you’re too weak....”
When he spoke, the distance tickled my lips. His whisper spilled hot breath.
The dragon’s heat-laden breath slipped in through the seam of my lips. It ran down my throat, then warmed my chest and belly in order.
Somewhere, a sweet scent started. On the sea in front of my eyes, waves rolled.
“You won’t... be able to endure....”
“...Endure what?”
At some point Varen had brought out the tail he’d been hiding. Hot, all-too-hot, it crawled over me.
Then it wrapped tight around my waist and began to squeeze bit by bit. I sucked in a short breath; [N O V E L I G H T] Varen’s mouth lifted faintly.
“With your body you can’t endure... a dragon’s...”
Right then, a lively voice ripped the air.
“Ceryl! I found the herbs!”
In an instant my senses snapped back and I sprang away like a kid caught playing with fire.
“—Aagh!”
What was I doing just now. It felt like waking from a long dream. I clutched my pounding heart and scrambled to my feet.
“Uh—oh, y-you’re back?”
My palms were slick with sweat. I wiped them on my clothes, trying to unwind a tense body.
“They’re rare, so I was worried, but I found them in the ravine!”
I swallowed dry. Hesitating, I looked back.
“......”
Varen was asleep. A moment ago he’d had his lips to mine, whispering. Now he breathed in soft whistles, and the tail was nowhere.
“You just brew these into a tea. I don’t know if it’ll work on a dragon, though.”
“Ah... thanks. Good work, Kallen.”
“Oh my—he’s already asleep. I’ll brew the tea ahead of time.”
Kallen dug into the pack by feel. She pulled out the dented aluminum pot and poured in cold water. Without boiling it, she dumped in all the herbs she’d brought.
I stood there blankly and fanned my top. The heat I’d caught from Varen still burned my face.
I couldn’t make sense of it. Was it really a dream? I’d been tired for days, but seeing a waking hallucination?
“Erhaim leaves are terribly bitter if you just eat them. Usually you boil them with sweet Tairak, but I couldn’t find any. I did pick wild raspberries, so it’ll be fine.”
Kallen chattered and filled the silence.
The sound dragged me down to reality. I chalked it up to a fatigue-soaked vision and went over to her.
The pot was already filled. Herbs and berries floated in the cold water.
“You said it has to be brewed as tea.”
“We can’t use fire right now. If it steeps in cold water, won’t it be similar?”
I only lifted a shoulder. The herb farmer’s daughter should know better than me.
She stirred hard at the unboiling mess. Then she peered into the pot, and started rummaging in the Spirit’s pouch again.
What came out was a chunk of dry bread. She didn’t even cut it—just dropped it whole.
“Why the bread?”
“You haven’t eaten. This way we take care of the meal at the same time.”
“Wait, and why jerky.”
“It’ll soften in water anyway. I thought the meal didn’t have enough nutrients.”
She did seem to be thinking of Varen’s body in her own way, but the pot was becoming a sewer.
In the end I couldn’t stand it and took the ladle from her hand.
“Are you taking revenge on the dragon? I thought you’d worked through your feelings.”
Kallen looked stricken.
“I picked the herbs so carefully... I only added things because I thought you’d be hungry...”
I felt bad for the drooping orange head, but one more look in the pot hardened my resolve.
No matter what, I wasn’t feeding Varen garbage soup.
“Let’s fish out just the herbs. If we dry them well and brew them tomorrow, it should be fine.”
“...I’m no help at all.”
We fished the herbs out of the stew of everything. Whatever she’d put in there, the fresh greens had blushed red and gone limp.
Even dried, this wouldn’t be edible. I’d toss it once Kallen fell asleep.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve learned when my mother told me to. You always end up cooking.”
“I don’t know if what I do counts as cooking. I throw it all in and boil it.”
“That’s all I do too...”
“You have to boil things that are edible.”
Strictly speaking, the things Kallen had added were each edible.
But herbs and raspberries, bread and jerky thrown together into one pot was beyond saving. You couldn’t call that thing food.
I set the pot aside and patted the crestfallen head.
Kallen was useful in a dozen ways. So what if she couldn’t cook.
“It’s fine. You’re smart.”
At one word of praise she lit up and smiled.
“They say a smart woman has a hard time getting married. Are there men who like smart women?”
Another anachronism. My face tightened on its own.
Kallen adjusted her posture like she meant to seek serious advice.
“If I marry quickly, I can put my siblings through school. What I earn at the Facility barely covers money to send home.”
“How old are your siblings?”
“My full sister is twelve. The ones back home are four, five, eight, and nine.”
“You feed all of them?”
“All the adults in the village died. I’m the oldest.”
Telling her hometown’s story didn’t seem as painful now. The forced bright smile made it feel even more pitiful.
I patted her small head again. She was only nineteen, and still she was playing head of household because she was the closest thing to an adult.
Kallen chattered on, lively, telling me things I hadn’t asked.
“Thanks to you, I could buy fur boots for my siblings. It’s pretty cold where I’m from.”
“You could’ve told me sooner.”
If I’d known, I could’ve bought a few pairs of shoes.
I still wasn’t used to this world’s money. I only knew my pay at the Facility was more than ten times a low-level administrator’s, so I wasn’t hurting.
“After I see my siblings this time, I’m going to a city past the mountains.”
“To find work there?”
“Yes. And in half a year I’ll be of age, so I should look for a place to marry into too.”
The repeated word was grating. I understood the situation, but why was a minor so fixated on marriage.
“If I can, I’d like a rich man whose hair isn’t falling out.”
“What? You’re going to marry an old man?”
“Then he’ll take in my siblings.”
The sound sat heavy; I rubbed my face. My expression wasn’t behaving.
I swallowed the words that almost slipped. My own future was a fog; I couldn’t blurt out a promise to take in a kid.
Above all, taking people in to raise them was the kind of thing I wouldn’t do with a knife at my throat.
I changed the subject.
“Kallen, is there something you want to do?”
“I want to marry a rich noble.”
“No, not that. I mean what you want. Studying’s fine too.”
“......”
She’d been talking without a pause; now her face locked. Just for a beat. Then she shook it off with a flimsy smile and a wave.
“What are you saying. How would a mountain girl ever go to school.”
It had been a figure of speech. This place really did think like a pre-modern world.
A poor family’s daughter isn’t even allowed schooling, and the eldest girl is capital for the household.
“If school didn’t care about family or gender, what would you want to learn?”
“Thinking about that is pointless...”
“Just imagine. Maybe the future will be like that.”
Whether a day like that would come even in this old-world fantasy, I didn’t know.
But who knew. Maybe even here, an age of peace would arrive.
