Chapter 29
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 29
Chapter Title: A Good Example Where Even Grabbing Someone by the Collar and Dragging Them Back Earns Praise
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“Bring more potions! Pour every last one we have!”
My shout echoed thunderously through the lord’s office.
The doctor’s hands trembled uncontrollably as he stitched up Karack’s wound, sweat pouring off him like rain.
Lilian, her face pale as a ghost, was squeezing out every drop of her mana to maintain her magic.
The floor was already soaked in Karack’s dark red blood, and every step produced a sickening squelch.
The situation was hopeless.
Not even the top-grade potions from the baron’s emergency safe, nor Lilian’s precise academy-topping magic, could stem the life force draining from Karack’s body like sand through an hourglass.
The wound from Araktu’s greatsword wasn’t just a simple gash.
The brute’s savage fighting spirit lingered in it, necrotizing cells and rejecting the potions outright.
Lilian’s exhausted mana simply couldn’t push it out completely.
“He’s… he’s lost too much blood. The strange power inside the wound is rejecting any healing. There’s no hope at this rate. Without a massive transfusion right now, he won’t make it…”
The doctor’s despairing diagnosis fell.
I didn’t hesitate, rolling up my sleeve and thrusting out my arm.
“Use my blood! Take as much as you need!”
“W-Wait! Brother, calm down! I’ll check first!”
Lilian grabbed my arm in a panic.
With shaking hands, she mixed my blood with Karack’s and channeled her mana into a blood compatibility spell.
But moments later, her face twisted in even greater despair.
“No… Brother Edel’s blood isn’t compatible with Uncle Karack’s.”
Of course, ordinary human blood wouldn’t match a barbarian’s.
If even my blood—the only barbarian here—didn’t work, we had no way to source any.
In desperation, I lashed out.
“Damn it! Find a way! Do something—anything!”
Despite my scream laced with anguish, Karack’s rough hand grew steadily colder.
His broad chest was barely rising now, hardening like a boulder.
“No… I can’t let you go like this! Hey, Karack! Snap out of it! If you give up, that’s it! Wake up!”
To no avail, the doctor set down his tools with a hollow expression.
The magical glow flickering at Lilian’s fingertips faded weakly.
“What are you doing?! If you give up, then what?!”
A fat tear dropped from her wide eyes, rolling down Karack’s blood-smeared cheek.
I was on the verge of madness.
“Don’t cry! Karack’s not dead yet! If I say he’s not, then he’s not! If you don’t want to, get out of the way! I’ll do it myself!”
I shoved the doctor aside roughly and placed my hand on Karack’s cold chest.
The emergency aid knowledge I’d picked up while preparing as a squire flashed through my mind.
But this was far beyond any petty technique.
“Hey, doctor! Tell me what to do first!”
At my command, he shook his head and murmured softly.
“He’s… not breathing anymore. His heart’s stopped.”
“What…?”
The world froze.
Nothing stirred beneath my palm on Karack’s chest.
“No way, right, Karack? Get up and nag me about training again. You can’t go anywhere without the chieftain’s permission, you idiot!”
Clawing my way up from back alleys alone, I’d never let anyone into my heart.
I’d stolen from others, crushed them, lived only for myself.
To me, this idiotically loyal barbarian was my first real “person.”
My first comrade, friend, family.
“…No. I won’t let you go. Never!!!!”
I clutched at Karack’s chest and wailed.
“Sob, ugh!”
Lilian’s sobs filled the lord’s office alongside my cries.
You should outlive me.
You idiot, getting swept up in the moment…
I haven’t repaid a single thing you’ve given me.
“Please, wake up… Karack. I still owe you so much!”
Sorry… I’m sorry… Karack… What have I done… What the hell…!
My arrogance killed you.
Just as sorrow peaked and my heart felt like bursting—
Whoosh—!
A pure, crystalline light bloomed from deep within me, beyond my heart.
It wasn’t fighting spirit.
Not a raging flame, but a cool, refreshing dew at dawn.
“Wh-What… is this light?”
As I stared at my hand in confusion, Lilian, mid-sob, widened her eyes and screamed.
“W-Wait… Brother Edel… Th-That light…”
The magical genius Lilian instinctively knew what it was.
Mana from ancient tomes at the academy, passed down in legends.
“That’s fairy mana!”
“What? Fairy?”
Fairies.
The race called nature’s origin and life’s guardians.
Their power specialized not in destruction, but in “life,” “nature,” and “harmony.”
Am I… a fairy descendant?
“Brother Edel! Pour that light into Uncle Karack’s heart right now! Hurry!”
“How do I control it?!”
“No technique needed! Just pour in your desperate wish to save him! The power will find its own path! Quick, there’s no time!”
I snapped to and gathered the surging light within me.
Me, truly half-barbarian, half-fairy.
When Quest Master joked I took after “mom,” I’d thought, “For a barbarian to be this small, does mom have to be a fairy?”
I’d chalked up my smaller build to Kel Bark traits.
But that didn’t matter now.
Explanations later.
Do what needs doing.
I focused every nerve into my fingertips.
Hummm—!
Warm, gentle energy, like caressing a wound, flowed from my hand into Karack’s chest.
“Urgh…!”
Unfamiliar power brought crushing vertigo.
Vision blurring, strength draining, but I didn’t stop.
I’d pour everything to mend this first broken axe of mine.
Lilian shouted, her mana aglow.
“A bit more! Just a little longer! Doctor! Don’t just stand there—keep operating!”
The doctor, awestruck by the mystical light, scrambled for his tools.
The light coursed through Karack’s veins, miraculously reviving necrotic tissue.
How much time passed?
Thump—
A faint vibration reached my palm.
Tiny, but the strongest life signal.
“…Gasp.”
Karack’s pale lips quivered, his stalled lungs gulping air desperately.
“His heart… it’s beating again! Pulse returning! A miracle!”
With the doctor’s cry came frantic footsteps into the office.
Aila and Lunia rushed in with Batu.
“Karack!!”
Aila recoiled at the blood-soaked scene but charged forward.
“What happened?! How is he?”
“Dragged him back from hell’s doorstep by the collar! Aila, can you finish with your shamanism?!”
Aila swiftly checked Karack.
Hope lit her eyes.
“He’s alive… Good job!! That’s how you do it—drag ’em back! Life force is flowing! Lunia! Set up the amplification ritual now!!”
“Yes, Captain!”
The doctor’s precise surgery, Aila and Lunia’s shamanism, and Lilian’s support magic wove into a final desperate battle.
I staggered to the wall, slumping to watch.
Relief washed over me, sapping my strength.
Live, Karack! After all this, if you die, I’ll kill you myself.
In the end, Karack won his wager with the god of death.
Before Hart’s knight commander returned from cleanup, we moved to the fortress’s secret infirmary, known only to the baron.
He needed total isolation and rest.
We’d scared them enough; no funny business now.
In the corridor outside the infirmary.
Night air chilled my cheek.
Aila approached my weary side.
“He’s past the crisis. Now it’s a waiting game. Wound’s deep, but that strange power you gave him has recovery speeding impossibly.”
“…You worked hard. Thanks to you, Aila. Truly.”
I bowed sincerely, and her usually tough face flushed oddly.
She pretended nonchalance, grumbling.
“Weird guy… Thought you saw us as tools to use. To care this much for tribe members… I’ll admit it—I was wrong. Sorry, ‘Kel Bark’.”
The moment Aila truly recognized Edel as Kel Bark.
“B-But! Don’t expect honorifics!”
“Never did.”
I chuckled and picked up the heavy, fishy-smelling object at my feet.
Araktu’s left arm, blood congealed black.
“Saved this.”
“Th-That’s… a branded arm!”
“Yeah. Araktu’s brand. Need a shaman to make it mine, right?”
Aila took the arm with trembling hands.
Tension filled her eyes.
“Possible. Materials are all in the tribe warehouse. But it’s no easy path. Brands are powerful, so the vessel must match. Must pair with stage-4 tattooing—pain drives people mad or kills them.”
This—nearly losing my man to my weakness—must be the last.
Surviving slyly is instinct, but protecting the precious demands overwhelming force. I felt it in my bones.
“Good. Start the moment we’re back at the tribe.”
I’ll become the toughest chieftain on this southern continent.
No one will look down on us; no enemy will dare break my axe.
Then—
Step—
Light footsteps.
Lilian.
“Here you are? Brother Edel?”
“Yeah. How’re you holding up?”
Lilian had collapsed from exhaustion after seeing Karack stabilize.
“Recovering now.”
“Glad to hear. Thanks, Lilian. Really.”
She beamed.
“No biggie—Uncle Karack’s one of my favorites too. Anyway…”
She paused, then said,
“What was that mana?”