My body still shivered, but the end finally in sight sent energy surging through me.
“How long do you think it’ll take?”
“Who knows. If we don’t rest, about two days.”
“Great. Let’s push through!”
“You can be the only one to push.”
“Fine! I’ll push!”
He nitpicked the phrasing and I answered brightly anyway. I couldn’t help smiling.
I strode out in high spirits. Every time the thin leather shoes met the ground like ice, it hurt enough that I wanted to cut off my toes.
Varen, matching my side, looked in a good mood too.
“Once we reach the Eterna Nest, it won’t be cold anymore.”
“That won’t be all. It’ll finally be goodbye to this damned forest.”
“Damned?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
We hadn’t had a single night of easy sleep for a month. Meals were just enough to fill the stomach, with no taste to speak of.
We’d skirted death more than a few times. I even had to bury the escort who’d followed me—by my own hands.
Time in the forest skimmed through my eyes like a panorama. Maybe because of the cold, the gooseflesh rose worse. I shook my shoulders fussily and clenched my teeth.
“Ugh. I never want to come here again.”
“...I see.”
At the sulky reply, I looked over. Varen stared at the woods with a bitter eye.
“Not you?”
“No. Not me.”
So he had it easier, I almost said and swallowed it.
Sure, Varen had suffered too, but not as much as I had.
The way that dragon had tied my insides in knots. I think I lost more weight from fretting than from physical hardship.
Varen even cast his eyes around with a gloomy look.
“I was happy. Traveling with you.”
“Can you call this traveling.”
“Maybe. Everything is the first time for me.”
Ah. Right.
This was the dragon who’d thanked me for showing him the world in a single wildflower. There had been perilous moments and bouts of high fever, but perhaps the free days had been joyful.
I’m the short-sighted one. I was truly glad his first journey would remain a happy memory.
“In this forest, you and I first shared a kiss.”
“......”
“And more than anything, you hugged me and spread your legs and rubbed—”
“Whoa—whoa! Quiet! Don’t say it!”
I clamped his mouth in a rush and checked Kallen.
The orange head was hopping about, scouting for new herbs.
I pressed a finger to my lips and narrowed my eyes.
“Try saying that anywhere else.”
I warned through clenched teeth, but Varen looked serene. He leaned his face forward, then even pressed a little kiss to the palm covering his mouth.
I jerked my hand away like from a hot brand. I was about to snap about where he {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} thought he was pulling such tricks when Varen moved first.
“I won’t say it anywhere. I’ll be the only one who knows that side of you. From now on, forever.”
“...Hah. Please.”
I was too dumbfounded to speak. From now on? Forever?
We didn’t even know if we’d see tomorrow’s sunrise—what faith did he have to speak of the future so casually.
More than that, from now on, forever, I would not be showing that side again. Once was enough to be manhandled by my bonded dragon.
With that satisfied smile on him, I said nothing and walked ahead. I’m not even particularly smooth-tongued, but somehow whenever I talk with Varen, I get drawn in and come out behind.
I opened and closed the hand his lips had touched. A dragon’s lips were the only part soft, the only part warm.
***
“Cough... cough....”
Even bundled in every piece of clothing we had and wrapped in a blanket, the cough wouldn’t stop. We’d found a cave, but once night fell the temperature dropped further.
Rami had gone stiff as a board, and Elfera paced the cave breathing white plumes.
Even Kallen, who had looked strong in the day, curled up and shivered.
Only Varen—whose growth-pain fevers had vanished in the cold region—was fine. As if paying back the nursing he’d received, he kept boiling hot water and handing it round.
But a single cup of herb tea couldn’t chase off the cold. A hot brass cup could only warm a palm at best.
“Ceryl, I’ll light a fire. The smoke won’t show in here.”
“N... no, in here... oxygen poor... car... bon... mon... oxide....”
Lighting a fire in an unventilated cave was nothing but a suicide attempt.
If the oxygen concentration dropped, there could be headache and dizziness. If the firewood burned incompletely and produced carbon monoxide, it would be even more dangerous.
I needed to explain in detail, but my mouth wouldn’t move.
Varen only let out heavy, frustrated sighs. He tried several times to make a gentle heat by puffing breath—each time flamboyant flames crackled up and died.
He could blaze down a building easily, but making a mild warmth, even after hours of practice, wouldn’t go the way he wanted.
Hugging the blanket, I slowly looked around the cave. So that’s why the stalactites on the ceiling glittered—that wasn’t stone, it was icicles.
The brutal cold made my mind drift. Sleep crashed over me like madness.
“Ceryl. Ceryl, open your eyes.”
I felt Varen shaking me. I wanted to open them too, but my eyelids weighed a thousand pounds.
Ah... if I sleep here my face will freeze crooked... just two more days and we finally reach the end...
We’d come this far dodging countless Dragon Hunters. To fall to mere cold.
I remembered what Kallen had said the first day we left the Spirit’s Domain and started traveling.
That I didn’t know how terrifying nature was.
I’d thought I knew. I wanted to say I’d done my military service in Gangwon.
But I hadn’t. The cold of a fantasy world was on another plane.
I’d wondered how I would die in this place. I didn’t think it would be freezing.
***
I must have lived decently enough to reach heaven.
The cold that made me want to cut off my toes was gone, and warmth soaked my whole body.
On top of that, a soft, fluffy, familiar singe and toasty smell tickled my nose. My hands found their place of their own, twirling springy curls.
My lips curved at the pleasant feel of a chestful of fluff.
Ah, warm. Ah, pretty.
“Baa-aaah.”
Touch and smell—and then hearing. At the familiar bleat, my heavy eyelids flew open.
I sprang up, my body lighter.
“...Yangsooni!”
“Baa-aaah.”
“My god, baby! You’re alive!”
“Baa-aa-aaah.”
The stubby tail swung left and right like a pendulum. When I grabbed her in my arms, she blushed her embers inside her fleece and grew shy.
When I came to my senses, the narrow cave was packed full of black curly fleece. Karbes crammed in with no room to step were generating heat.
Rami, once frozen solid, slept belly-up. Kallen, who had been tightly curled, was now sprawled on her back sweating buckets.
Even Elfera lay on her side, huffing. Horses usually doze standing, but she must have been so exhausted she’d fallen into a deep sleep.
I’d thought I would freeze to death like this. The first monster I’d saved in this world had come to repay me.
“Yangsooni—ugh... you’re the best. You’re the best!”
“Hmph. Calling a Karbe the best. Ridiculous.”
A voice I’d forgotten for a moment popped out.
Varen, leaning back against the cave wall, was glaring at Yangsooni.
“When I fully awaken my power, I can hold you warm all day. A Karbe won’t even compare.”
“Please. Awaken first, then talk.”
Leaving the grumbling, bristling Varen, I hugged Yangsooni again.
The horn that had turned glossy under my care at the facility had grown larger and harder. While I stroked it with a satisfied smile, a Karbe a little bigger than Yangsooni came over.
“Baa-aa-aaah.”
The bleat was lower and deeper. I knew at once it was a male.
I thought he’d come to greet me, but the big male rubbed his face on Yangsooni. Yangsooni’s short tail wagged hard.
A tail that had been reserved only for me wagged at another male.
“Y-you two—what are you...”
Mouth agape, I watched the black-sheep couple’s display of affection. It felt like someone had stolen my jewel of a daughter right in front of me.
So this is how a father with a daughter feels. My chest caved in.
“He says ‘husband.’ He wants to introduce him to you.”
Varen translated in a curiously lighter voice.
I clenched both fists. Not boyfriend—husband? No doubt some black-hearted punk had sweet-talked naïve Yangsooni.
How kind our Yangsooni is, how gentle, how innocent about the world.
“Baa-aaah.”
“Baa-aa-aaah.”
But the duet that followed made the strength drain out of me.
Seeing Yangsooni lay her ears comfortably and half-close her eyes, rubbing horns against the male, I felt it was time to let her go.
Reluctant as I was, I reached out and stroked Yangsooni’s husband.
I packed my heart into it—take care of my kid—and even gave the pair a name that went with Yangsooni.
“Rocky, take good care of our Yangsooni.”
“Baa-aaah.”
“First and second, your wife comes first. Food goes to Yangsooni before you. Got it?”
“Baa-aa-ah.”
“And... don’t make my girl cry. You know?”
“Baa-aa-aaah.”
At least my son-in-law felt solid enough. If nothing else, he seemed very considerate about kindling the embers.
“What on earth are you talking about.”
Varen’s baffled voice went in one ear and out the other.
