Frail Little Beauty
The sensation of coughing up a hot clot of blood was unpleasant no matter how many times I felt it.
The heat searing my throat was bad enough, and then there was the stench of blood rising from deep inside me….
Though, to be honest, once you’ve started vomiting blood from your mouth—the place blood is supposed to stay in the first place—arguing over whether you feel bad about it seems a little pointless.
“Cough… cough….”
Despite my carefree thoughts, my body kept spewing up more blood.
Whether you called it coughing blood or vomiting blood, there was no way to describe it as a normal bodily state.
In fact, even if I looked fine on the outside, I was a total wreck on the inside, nothing more than a mangled heap of flesh.
I’m going to die….
I was used to enduring pain.
In the back alleys, where fists came before laws, a little kid—especially a girl—was the weakest kind of prey there was.
I couldn’t afford to show when something hurt, so I always had to swallow the pain down and keep it buried.
But even for me, the pain surging through me now was something I couldn’t quite get used to.
At first it had been like being poked over and over with tiny needles, but by now it had turned into something more like a knife shaving thin slices off my organs and rubbing salt into the wounds.
My body, which had only just unfurled for a moment, curled tight again into a ball.
“W-what do we do…? R-right! Celine. If it’s Celine…!”
Through my blurred vision, dulled by pain, I could barely make out Daeun’s determined expression.
“Kana, hold on just a little longer. I’ll bring Celine.”
Her words were full of hope—hope that if Celine, the apprentice saintess, came, she could heal Kana.
And when Celine finally arrived with the others and poured holy power into me, Daeun’s face was still soaked in expectation.
But then….
“…”
“Celine? What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ll be able to heal Lady Kana on my own.”
“...What?”
“Of course not….”
Since I’d expected this outcome from the beginning, I slowly pushed myself up.
Using the plain-looking longsword, which had replaced the red blade lost with the dispelling of the blessing, as a makeshift cane.
“This isn’t an ordinary wound….”
It was the result of the mana of a Red Dragon—known to be especially ferocious even among dragons—having swept through my body.
How should I put this…? It was hard to explain in words, but….
It wasn’t that there was actually a wound left behind. It was more like my body had taken too much strain and was suffering from complete overload.
So naturally, Celine’s Holy Magic wouldn’t work.
“I get it! I get it, so stop talking! You’re still bleeding…!”
Daeun cut me off and wiped at the corner of my mouth with her sleeve.
Bright red blood smeared across the white cloth.
“Ah.”
So that’s why it felt like something kept running down my face—I hadn’t even noticed I was bleeding while talking.
How careless.
“For a second, I thought it was spit, not blood….”
Daeun said she’d mistaken it because I had been so calm.
But whether it was blood or spit, if it was dripping out of your mouth like that, wasn’t the carelessness the same?
“They’re completely different! No, more importantly, I told you not to keep talking while you’re hurting!”
The soft touch of cloth brushed my mouth, and Daeun’s other sleeve was stained red too.
If you got blood on white clothes, laundry became a hassle.
As I stared blankly at the blood on my sleeve and thought that, I suddenly—
“…Huh.”
“Kana?!”
“Lady Kana!”
Just a moment ago I’d been looking ahead, but now my vision was pointed at the floor.
-Clatter!
Only after hearing the clang of the longsword dropping from my hand—my substitute cane—did I realize what had happened.
I fell over.
I’d wondered why the ground looked so close.
Thank goodness. It wasn’t that I’d shrunk—it was just that I’d fallen.
The sounds in my ears sank into a heavy murk, as if I’d been submerged underwater.
My vision, too, blurred as though it were refusing to lose.
…Maybe I pushed a little too hard.
With that thought, my dazed consciousness went completely black.
* * *
Was this how the family members waiting outside when a patient went into surgery felt?
For Daeun, who had always been the patient rather than the one waiting, this was a strangely new experience.
Tap, tap.
Tap, tap.
The sound of pacing footsteps and the faint gnawing of nails filled the narrow hallway.
Creak.
The hinges on the tightly shut door shifted.
It was such a small sound that it might have slipped past unnoticed, but Daeun, strung tight with nerves, didn’t miss it.
Prick!
Like a rabbit’s ears popping up, Daeun spun toward the opening door and rushed at it.
“...!”
“W-well? How is she?! Is she okay?”
Celine, stepping out through the doorway, froze under the force of Daeun’s charge.
“Ah… I’m sorry.”
Only after seeing Celine’s thoroughly flustered face did Daeun realize her mistake and step back.
“It’s all right. I understand completely.”
The gentle smile returned to Celine’s face after her brief startlement.
The time she had spent traveling with Kana and Daeun—these past few weeks—had been enough for her to understand them.
It wasn’t hard to see: Kana, who complained often but was especially soft only with Daeun, and Daeun looking at her with eyes that practically dripped honey.
Of course you’d worry when the girl you cherish so deeply is unconscious and lying in bed.
…It’s sweet, really.
Celine shook her head slowly, though the warmth in her expression carried a hint of envy, perhaps even jealousy.
“I’m not a physician, so I can’t give you a precise diagnosis, but… Lady Kana’s body doesn’t seem to have any abnormalities.”
“I see….”
Daeun’s expression didn’t brighten much at Celine’s answer.
Hearing that there was nothing wrong with her body might have sounded like a relief, but it also meant that Celine couldn’t heal her.
Dragon mana….
I’d thought that since it was a national treasure of a country, it would be no ordinary object, but I’d never imagined it would be that extraordinary.
Thinking of Kana—who had taken down the shadow assaulting the village without even allowing it a single blow—Daeun shivered.
But great power always came with a great cost.
The girl who had smashed the shadow in one shot had collapsed, her already pale face turned even whiter, and even now—hours later—she still hadn’t regained consciousness.
“So all we can do is wait, I suppose….”
Kana was strong. She’d wake up soon.
Daeun tried to comfort herself with that thought, but her unease refused to settle.
She looked like she was in a lot of pain.
Kana had tried so hard to act like everything was fine, like she wasn’t bothered at all.
But Daeun had seen it clearly.
Her lips had gone stark white from clenching through the pain, sweat had run down her forehead, her focus had gone strangely hazy, her brow had been deeply furrowed, and even her voice had carried pain in it.
There were more signs than that, too, enough to guess that Kana’s condition was bad—but in the end, she’d been unable to withstand it and collapsed, so there was nothing more to say.
“How is she?”
“There’s no real improvement.”
Atisha, who had stepped away for a moment, returned.
The shadow’s assault had caused heavy damage to the village.
So many buildings had been destroyed and so many casualties had occurred that there was nowhere suitable to shelter the patients, much less find a place to spend the night.
For now, everyone had crowded together in the few buildings still standing.
In that situation, Atisha had generously offered one of the relatively intact buildings—her own residence—to Daeun’s group.
Daeun was grateful for Atisha’s kindness, but it also made her uncomfortable.
“Are you sure it’s okay for just us to use such a huge place?”
It felt awkward to claim a place that could easily house dozens of people, just for themselves.
She had already tried to say as much several times, but Atisha had been firm.
“You have to repay kindness….”
They were the ones who had saved the village, so why would she begrudge them a mere residence like this?
And there was another reason, too.
“It can’t be good for the patient to be breathing in all the Magi we give off….”
Even if this was already a village awash in Magi, there was still a difference between being in the same space and not.
Atisha’s opinion was that even if Kana would have been fine when she was in good condition, now that she had lost consciousness, they should be careful.
“Hmm… if that’s the case….”
When Atisha brought up Kana’s health, Daeun reluctantly backed down.
“If you need anything, just say the word… I’ll help however I can….”
“I don’t really need anything yet. I’ll let you know if I think of something later.”
“All right…. Oh, right….”
This wasn’t what I came to say….
After exchanging pleasantries and a bit of small talk, Atisha clapped her hands softly.
“I almost forgot to tell you this…. Don’t go outside for the next few hours….”
“Huh? I wasn’t planning on leaving, but… is there a reason?”
“A pack of monsters was spotted heading this way…. Normally, the palisade would’ve been enough to handle it, but….”
Trailing off, Atisha glanced out the window.
The ruined, burned village was reflected in her black eyes.
“As you can see, this place is a mess. So stay here if you can…. There might be some stragglers we haven’t cleaned up yet….”
“A pack of monsters?”
“Yeah….”
They hadn’t even finished dealing with the shadow’s attack, and now a pack of monsters was coming on top of that.
The phrase “when it rains, it pours” fit the situation perfectly, and Daeun spoke carefully.
“Should I help?”
“No need…. Even if it’s a monster pack, there aren’t that many of them, so we can hold them off with our own strength….”
“That’s a relief, then…. Still, it’s kind of strange.”
Suddenly, Daeun remembered a line she’d seen somewhere before.
Heinrich’s law, was it?
A statistical rule saying that before a major accident occurs, dozens of minor accidents and warning signs of the same cause appear first.
To have one incident after another like this….
Wasn’t it a sign that something even bigger was about to happen?
Daeun felt anxiety rising in waves.
That said, she wasn’t so clueless as to say something like that bluntly to people already dealing with a disaster, so she changed the subject.
“Why now, of all times?”
“Who knows…. Maybe they thought it was their chance….”
Unlike Daeun, who was chewing anxiously on her lower lip, Atisha remained easygoing.
In fact, she even stuck out her tongue and smacked her lips.
“We’ve been short on meat lately, so this works out nicely….”
“Gah….”
Hearing Atisha say that, Daeun made a strangled noise.
Monster meat.
For someone from Earth like Daeun, the idea of eating monster meat was not something she could ever easily get used to.
She knew it tasted good, but picking it up and eating it without hesitation still felt… off somehow.
Feeling a suspicious stare on her, Daeun cleared her throat.
“A-anyway, I hope nothing serious comes of it.”
“It won’t.”
“You think so?”
“Why are you looking at me when you say that…?”
“Huh? Well, who else would I look at when I say it besides Atisha?”
Daeun said it without hiding her confusion.
Atisha said nothing and tipped her chin toward the side.
As if telling her to look over there.
Daeun’s eyes rolled that way.
“...Huh?”
The firmly shut door was wide open now.
And through the gap, a small girl was leaning halfway against the frame, watching her.
“Bugs are drawn to bright light, after all….”
Kana, her face no less exhausted than Atisha’s, said that.