The Price of the Dragon Word

One by one, all of them.

Amid the downpour, everyone heard the Central Officer's declaration.

But it was no mere shout.

It was the Dragon Word.

As though invisible electricity had coursed through their entire bodies, a thrill so intense it bordered on terror struck every one of them.

And at the center of it stood Nathan, cradling the egg, unmoving against the wind and rain.

Like a rock that could not be shaken.

"Good grief..."

The words someone barely managed to breathe out spoke for them all.

Then, without warning—

"Hrk...!"

With a horrible wet sound, Nathan vomited blood.

- Thud.

He lost his balance and collapsed to the ground.

"Aaaagh!! Nathan!!"

"Central Officer!!"

Screaming at the sight, Elaine, Erzena, and the Smell Officer bolted toward him in a heartbeat.

"Wh-what's happening? Why did he collapse all of a sudden!?"

"Nathan, stay with me—Nathan!"

No matter how they shook him, the Central Officer's body only hung limp in their arms.

Worse, a trickle of dark red blood had begun seeping endlessly from his mouth.

At their panicked questions, the Guard Commander—who in an instant had scanned Nathan's condition with his mana core—answered.

In other words: he was paying the price for speaking the Dragon Word.

A language that bends the laws of the world carries consequences.

But for the Central Officer—a man with no power at all—that price was far, far too cruel.

"What does that mean!? How bad is the damage!?"

Praying it wasn't as dire as it sounded, the Smell Officer asked—and the Guard Commander held his silence for a long moment before delivering the most terrible words they could imagine.

"..."

Very slowly, like a golem forced to say what it didn't want to say, Golem delivered its final diagnosis.

"No—no, no!"

"Ugh... uuuugh..."

The two women plunged headlong into panic at words that might as well have been a death sentence.

The others, too, froze in place, stunned by how abruptly everything had happened.

The first to collect himself was the Smell Officer.

"Damn it, first priority is getting him inside! Get him out of the rain first—"

The moment he spoke urgently and reached to lift the Central Officer with both arms—

- A wet gurgle.

Even more blood poured from his mouth and nose.

The Hearing Officer snapped alert and shouted.

"Blaszek, don't touch him! With his organs damaged, moving him will only make it worse!"

"Then what the hell am I supposed to do!?"

A curse burst out of him, born of sheer helplessness.

But no one had an answer.

Because no one had expected this.

Because this was an outcome, a price, no one could have foreseen.

Then, carefully touching Nathan's wrist, the Taste Officer spoke in a trembling voice.

"S-Smell Officer... the Central Officer's pulse... I-I can't feel it."

At that, the Smell Officer finally broke too.

"Central Officer! Central Officer, can you hear me!? Answer me!"

Silence.

"Damn you, Nathan Kell! Get up!"

Silence.

Warmth was slowly draining out of the slack body.

"Damn it, damn it!"

There was nothing he could do.

Even through the downpour, the smell of the Central Officer's blood began to hang thick in the air.

"You can't collapse here. Not you."

Blaszek ground his teeth and muttered.

"A healer will be too late. Which means..."

If it were the Central Officer—if it were this man—what would he have done?

His mind raced.

I have to use everything we have. Right now.

It didn't matter whether it was a person or an object.

And then, at last, he remembered what they had with them.

"Lady Erzena!"

At his shout, Erzena—who had been clutching Nathan's cooling hand, lost in a daze—lifted her head.

"Yes...?"

"Holy power! That's the only way right now!"

"...!!"

Only then did she remember what her own gift was.

"Yes—yes!!!"

She straightened at once and began to pray.

A golden radiance slowly, gently began to spread over Nathan's body.

Then the Smell Officer bellowed again.

"Guard Commander! Sync with the other guard units near the management office right now, and have them bring every emergency medical supply inside—coagulants and backup blood especially, all of it!"

As though he'd been waiting for the order, the Guard Commander executed it immediately.

Stay calm. Stay cold. But move fast—and don't hesitate.

Mirroring Nathan's command style exactly, the Smell Officer clenched his jaw.

With the Central Officer down, I'm the only one left who can lead.

Duty and desperation were driving his mind at a maddening pace.

"Your Highness. I'm truly sorry to ask this, but please use telekinesis to stabilize the Central Officer's body. Not a single twitch—it has to be locked completely still."

"Ugh... uuuu."

Seeing Erzena come back to herself, Elaine wiped her tears and nodded fiercely.

She stretched out her hand, and in an instant the limp body locked rigid, utterly motionless.

The Smell Officer didn't stop there.

"Touch Officer. You there?"

- Yes!

"You stay put. Even in a crisis like this, at least one of us has to remain at the management office."

No matter the chaos, someone had to hold the border.

Blaszek had not forgotten that iron rule.

- ...Understood. Smell Officer, please—please save the Central Officer.

The transmission cut off with those earnest words.

"Hearing—no, Sen. Sweep the whole area clean with magic. Not a single microbe gets in. Even with holy power healing him, the risk of infection will still be there."

"Got it. Redes Madeira!"

The Hearing Officer, who had breathed in rhythm with him for years, cast the spell without a moment's hesitation—sending a gale roaring through the five meters around them and blasting every contaminant away.

Which left only one person...

"Taste Officer."

"Is the... is the Central Officer... going to... die?"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The Taste Officer, who had depended on Nathan more than any of the Five Senses, was still sunk on the ground, drowning in shock.

At the sight, the Smell Officer growled and roared.

"Snap out of it, Shita Rahimu! This human isn't dead yet. So stop bawling and get in that house—towels to wipe the blood and water, NOW!!!"

A roar so thunderous it made the very thunder flinch and step aside.

It launched the Taste Officer clean off the ground.

"Eeek! Y-yes, SIR!!"

"I will not watch this blood-guzzler die. I refuse to let it end like this. I haven't even repaid my debt to him yet."

Digging up an old form of address after a very long time, he spoke in a rush.

"So please... please pull through, Central Officer."

And so, under the Smell Officer's command, they all began the emergency treatment of the Central Officer on the spot.

And watching it all—cradling the egg, frozen in shock—was Menassil.

The resonance ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still rang through her.

It had been unmistakably the Dragon Word—and an oath.

She could feel it.

A cry so fierce it had made every scale on her body stand on end.

Menassil stared down in a daze at Nathan, collapsed and wrapped in golden light, and murmured.

"Why... why go this far?"

What he had already done for her was more than she deserved.

Had he promised only to guard the egg, she would have been satisfied.

She had even been prepared to thank him willingly and simply fade away.

But Nathan had included Menassil herself in the Dragon Word.

And so the backlash struck him twice as hard.

An oath to guard even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one person would be more than a human body could bear.

Yet he had sworn for two—and toward a former dragon and an egg that was a dragon itself, no less.

It was sheer recklessness. He could not have been ignorant of how cruelly the price would come due.

"Nathan Kell..."

The man who had spoken words no one had ever spoken to her.

The man who had championed rules and principle over glory and greed.

And the man who had—not only the egg she had entrusted to him, but her as well—woven them into the Dragon Word and declared before the world that he would protect them.

Dragons are solitary beings.

Born strong, dying strong, they take no mate and lay their eggs alone.

It was the way of nature.

An utterly obvious process—an ecology of dragons unbroken for thousands of years.

But Nathan had defied it head-on.

There had been no hesitation in his eyes. Not a shred of deceit, not a flicker of doubt—he had thrown away his own life gladly.

A human—infinitely frail, living only for a fleeting instant.

And that being had sworn with his very name.

- A dull throb.

Menassil felt her heart ache with an intensity she had never known.

As much as when the mithril arrow had pierced her.

No—this was no such simple pain.

- Thump. Thump.

It was a fierce, pounding surge toward the man who, for the first time, had staked his life and his name in an oath made for her sake.

Feeling this violent emotion for the first time in her existence, she slowly turned her head to look at those gathered around Nathan.

Erzena, her face streaked with tears, praying to the god with everything she had.

Beside her, Elaine—weeping even as she held Nathan's hand and pressed his body steady to keep it stabilized.

The Smell Officer, the only one who did not waver, and the Hearing Officer, calmly incinerating the surrounding area section by section to render it clean.

The Taste Officer, wiping away the blood welling from the Central Officer's mouth with a cloth again and again as she fought back her sobs.

Even the Guard Commander, forming a great palm over them into a makeshift roof to keep the storm at bay while relaying the Central Officer's condition in real time.

People of every race, gender, origin, and age—all of them moving for the sake of one man alone.

And in that strange, wondrous union, every heart wished for the same thing.

"Please—please wake up...!"

"Nathan..."

That the one called the Central Officer would not die.

Only now could Menassil see it.

"...!!!"

The bond of souls forged when Incansus swore his trust in Nathan—knotted as tightly as a tie that could never be severed—linked all of these people to the Central Officer.

And now, it reached even to her and the egg.

"Good grief..."

At last, she understood.

What that strange sensation had meant, the time she had touched the Central Officer's arm.

Nathan Kell was a peculiar existence.

Powerless in every observable way, and yet something unmistakably dwelled within him.

The aura she had sensed in the Central Officer long ago had been black.

A chaos in which all things mingled—a color that contained every color.

His aura did not express itself outward.

Quite the opposite.

A power that held.

It was a vessel itself—one that took all the world into itself.

"You truly are... a strange one. The one who binds everyone together."

Menassil slowly looked down at the egg.

This child had a name now.

"...Kirba."

He had even declared the name in the Dragon Word—and so the child's fate was now bound to the Central Officer.

A bond that could never, ever be undone.

- A little wobble.

As though answering her call, the egg rocked gently.

"Yes. Let us go on together, you and I."

Menassil made her decision.

The prayers of those who believed in god.

The hopes of those who did not.

And upon them, she laid the heart of the last of the dragonewts—herself—and of the child who would carry her line: Kirba.

He had sworn to protect her and her egg—no, Kirba.

Then she, in turn, would protect him.

For this man who spoke words no one had ever spoken to me, I will give the rest of my life.

So she resolved.

I will live with you. And I will die with you.

For one single person, everyone poured out everything they had.

Just as he had once poured out everything for all of them.

And then, at last—

- A twitch.

Nathan's finger moved.