Chapter 213 Volume IV - Chapter 58: A Comforting Blue
Pain.
It's something I'm used to.
Ah...
I think... no, I can't say I'm used to it.
There was never a moment when I didn't think about it, even when I was suffering non-stop, day in and day out. Pain was one of the things that kept me away from the edge of madness, but it was also one of the things that kept me connected to reality.
It hurts even now, as it always has. I can feel my whole body, especially my right eye, writhing and doing everything it can to hold on to life.
The purple color in my vision is slowly fading, and the 'pain' that keeps me connected to reality is slowly becoming more intense.
I looked around, weakly. I was in a forest, the trees were not too dense but not too sparse either. It was night, the stars illuminated the dark sky. The moon was nowhere to be seen.
I was in a vehicle, moving through these sparse trees, a small car-like vehicle that I had narrowly missed from the camp outside Caleuche, even with all its power cut off.
It was on autopilot, and the dwarf who had put it in that mode was dead in a corner not far from me.
For a moment my whole body trembled, an unreasonable tremor.
I turned around and raised my eyes to the sky again, to the stars.
I'm going to die, I think.
I escaped from that ship, from the Caleuche. I even threatened a dwarf and confused him with caora to put the vehicle on autopilot. Now I'm heading toward the North Holar as fast as the terrain allows, but...
Will I make it?
Death is so close to me... I know it, I can feel it. However... I can't even move a muscle. All I can do is try to survive, crawl for my life.
I felt something rising in my throat. I quickly turned to the side, and then the metallic taste left its mark on my tongue and came out with my coughs, soaking the window of the car in blood.
I looked at the blood on the window, the blood that continued to leak between my lips and spill onto the floor.
I wiped my mouth, kept trying not to faint, and looked ahead. At least I tried.
Soon, the purple glow that kept fading every second was completely extinguished.
The purple color in front of my eyes disappeared completely. Caora left my body.
My whole body trembled with the loss of the most important support that had kept me alive, the warmth it had provided was replaced by the cold that was slowly becoming apparent.
I tried to reach out to it again, I poured all my will to live into it, I offered it everything it wanted. Yet my silent cries found no response. Caora rejected me.
My lips curled upward, I gritted my teeth, unable to even lift my head.
I focused on the ring on my right hand, then pulled out one of the syringes I'd scrounged from the torture chamber and injected myself with it before starting to open the hole in the ship.
I can't die...
I can't die yet...
What was in the syringe quickly spread through my body, bringing with it heat. And then pain.
It was one of the main things the dwarves used in torture. It was used to heal wounds, to keep the person alive as best they could. Of course, in doing so, it brought tremendous pain.
But it doesn't do the healing work completely. It doesn't completely close the wounds, it doesn't completely keep the person alive. It leaves it on the edge, so it's not a perfect healing potion.
The question is... is it enough for me?
It should be...
I have four more syringes.
I have to replenish my mana until the syringes run out, and I have to try to communicate with the caora again and again.
So, I continued to resist.
Minutes, maybe hours passed.
A few times I felt like fainting, but I didn't give up.
Still, it didn't matter much.
Eventually, I ran out of syringes.
My mana was replenished, so I tried to support myself with it, even if it wasn't very effective, and so I finally made it out of the forest.
The vehicle emerged from the forest into a clearing, revealing a distant city.
It was ahead of me, not far away, if not close.
I kept begging caora, asking for some help, even a little, even a tiny bit.
And yet, I received no response.
I thought and thought and thought, trying to keep my mind occupied.
I tried to think of good things, I thought of my future, I thought of things I could do, things I wanted to do.
I refused to die. I wanted to live, no matter what. No matter how hopeless the situation seemed, no matter how much I felt like today would be my last day... I refused.
In the middle of nothingness, thinking over and over and over, even though caora was not responding to me... I felt a warmth inside my body that slowly began to emerge.
I held on to that warmth, as there was nothing else I could do.
The more I thought, the hotter it got. It was comforting, peaceful even.
Meanwhile, I kept getting closer to the city. However, as I realized something with my one blurry eye, I involuntarily paused.
The city... No, directly outside the vehicle... does it look a bit blue?
It was, a slight blueness had enveloped my vision. I didn't have much time to focus on it, though.
Because, through the windshield of the car, I saw a glimpse of a flash in the city. It was momentary, I only saw it by chance. The impact was as instantaneous as it seemed.
The car suddenly turned to the left with a strange whispering sound. Then it rolled to the side with me in it.
*******
I grabbed my gun and took a deep breath.
I'm nervous... and also a little scared.
After all, I am on my first mission as a soldier.
I shook my head quickly from side to side, then took a deep breath once again.
I shouldn't let myself get caught up in this feeling. I chose to be a soldier, I chose to help my country in any way I could, unlike many others. So even if I'm nervous, I shouldn't stay behind like a coward.
While I was busy with these thoughts, the vehicle finally stopped.
All six soldiers in the vehicle with me stood up, we formed a line and the door at the back of the vehicle opened.
We stepped out, quickly lined up side by side and the corporal in charge stepped in front of us.
"We'll be investigatin' a vehicle from the south, no threat be expected but stay on alert nonetheless."
That was it, he turned around and then looked at the vehicle not far from us.
There were only a few hundred meters between us. It was on its side. It had blown a tire, leaving a trail on the road where it had drifted.
It hadn't caught fire or exploded, there wasn't even smoke coming out of it. It was just lying there on its side.
How long had it been like that? I think ten minutes at the most...
"Here we go."
And so we started moving forward, approaching the vehicle with our weapons aimed at it.
When there were only twenty meters between us and the vehicle, the corporal stopped.
He raised his hand and briefly made a circle with his hand.
We surrounded the vehicle, checking for any abnormalities.
My position had the best view of everyone, especially the windshield. Maybe that's why something caught my eye that the others had trouble seeing.
A strange bluish light was reflecting out of the windshield.
Because it was broken and dirty, and because of the faint blue glow reflecting off it, it was not very clear what was behind the glass. Still, I could vaguely make out something there.
"Sir, there is someone inside the vehicle."
The corporal hesitated a little, but finally gave his approval for us to approach the vehicle.
He chose me to be the one to go in the front.
I gripped my gun even tighter, aimed it at the vague silhouette in the windshield, and approached the vehicle.
As the distance between us decreased, I held my breath, trying to keep all my senses at the highest level.
The closer I got, the more distinct the silhouette became, and at the same time, the nervousness and fear that had gripped my body became more pronounced.
Yet that didn't stop me from noticing something else. The person inside the vehicle was not a dwarf, but a human being.
I couldn't help thinking, what is a human being doing here?
Then, finally, I came up to the vehicle. What was behind the windshield was now quite easily visible to me, but I had something else on my mind.
Wasn't I nervous? Wasn't I... Wasn't I scared just now?
Why do I feel... strange now? What... is this feeling?
I shook my head, focused inside.
There was indeed a person inside the overturned car. He looked young, maybe nineteen to twenty at most. He was injured, missing three of his fingers, and the dirty, bloody clothes he was wearing were in such a state that they looked like they were about to crumble.
Still, it didn't matter.
I had found the source of the blue light I saw as I approached the vehicle. It was the person in front of me, emitting that light.
The faint glow surrounded the boy as if he were a living flame. It was protecting him.
It was not mana. Mana was colorless and only became colored when it was qualified. This was not a qualified mana… Mana did not make the dwarves feel anything. However, this did.
My eyes widened momentarily, because I understood what it was.
It was the cause of the strange feeling inside me, all over my body.
It was not going to hurt, it was good. It even had a comforting feeling. So much so that I involuntarily wanted to get closer to it, this blue glow that seemed to be about to fade... It was pulling me toward it.
It didn't take me long to come to my senses, though.
Because the boy opened his eyes, as if he realized my presence. Or rather, he opened his only remaining left eye.
Reality hit me when his gray eye met mine and the boy coughed with blood oozing from his mouth.
"S- sir, there is a human inside!"
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