History Is Written in a Single Room
"......"
It was the first time I'd set foot in a hospital since the day Demalico had been admitted, hooked on cigarettes that might as well have been narcotics.
Elgrid was a major city, and I'd already been told that if the medical staff and facilities hadn't been as excellent as they were, things could have gone far worse.
Lying collapsed on the sickbed with her eyes closed was Dyna McLane — my older sister.
Her skin, pale as white jade and utterly unsuited to the phrase "country girl," and her black hair, the same shade as mine, had turned dry and brittle in the span of a single day.
And then there were the scales beginning to push up through her skin.
When I brushed them lightly with my fingertips, the sensation was nothing like soft human flesh — it was hard, like touching stone, and something inside me pounded in answer.
Dragonian.
Those who worshipped and served the dragons. They shared a roughly human appearance with us, but their distinctive traits were unmistakable.
First, the horns sprouting from their foreheads. Usually two, and to them those horns were pride and honor made flesh.
Then the skin color — red, blue, green, and countless others. Their skin was never soft like ours; dragon scales grew across it in patches.
Yes. Exactly like my sister now.
Even with her eyes shut, she was sweating through her ragged breathing. I brushed the damp hair back from her face and smoothed it into place.
Once the sweat-soaked strands were cleared away, two small peaks were faintly visible on her forehead.
Scales rising on her skin. Horns beginning to grow from her brow.
My sister was in the process of becoming a Dragonian.
The doctor who had beamed at me, babbling that he'd never seen anything like it and that he had to report it to the Association, was already half-dead by my hand.
"......Noona."
A strange feeling rose in me. I took Dyna's hand.
In my previous life, I hadn't had the luxury of worrying about her. A few years after entering the Demon World Forest, I'd left it more than once with the thought of finding her again.
I never did.
She had vanished without leaving so much as a trace. This time I hadn't gone into the forest at all, so I'd assumed there wouldn't be any major problems.
But looking at it now, this incident and the fact that I couldn't reach her are almost certainly connected.
Even so, guilt seeped up from somewhere deep inside me.
No matter how foolish I'd been back then, the fact that I — the one who'd abandoned my only family and run — was now grieving for her felt hypocritical. Contradictory.
"Daniel."
"......"
Rin and Ares stepped into the room. Both of them were childhood friends from the same village, and neither had attended lectures today so they could keep watch with me.
I wondered for a moment whether Ares really needed to be here too — but in a situation like this, I was a little grateful he was.
"The Headmaster said not to worry about attendance for now. He asked me to pass that along."
"Got it."
Having the Headmaster as backing wasn't for nothing. He handled these things smoothly enough — though given the circumstances, I couldn't feel particularly glad or proud about it.
"How's Noonim doing?"
According to my sister, she'd spent a fair amount of time with Ares over the last break. He'd been so hopeless around girls that she'd put him through training.
That probably explained the mix of love and hate in his eyes — but he was still worried about her.
As a rich kid, he was new money. As a villain, he was third-rate.
Not high quality, but I knew he wasn't purely evil either.
"Not good. The doctor said he has no idea what's going on."
They were managing her breathing, but beyond that they hadn't been able to prescribe anything useful.
In the end, all we could do was watch and wait.
Now that the two people I'd been waiting for had arrived, I slung on the backpack I'd prepared in advance and spoke.
"I'm heading for the Dragon's Border. If I go there, I should be able to find something out."
The boundary line between Dragonians and humans where Dyna had done her practical training. I was certain the answers lay there, and I intended to move immediately.
"Keep a close eye on Dyna's condition for me, all right?"
"Going alone is dangerous."
Rin said it with worry in her voice, but I shook my head and asked her to step aside with me for a moment. There was nowhere private to talk in the hospital, so Ares left the room for us.
"I think Dogfight might be involved in this."
"I think so too."
Rin had been through more Dogfight-related incidents with me than anyone else, so she had no other opinion to offer.
People who could graft the abilities of magic beasts from the Demon World Forest into human bodies wouldn't find Dragonians impossible.
"Have you found anything out?"
At my question, black energy slowly poured from the hollow of Rin's chest and soaked the floor. From the congealed mass of darkness, two men rose.
The same two who had come looking for us in Bethel when we'd burned down the Murder Hotel.
Both of them were already like dolls — lifeless, no different from the dead.
"I can't control my power perfectly yet, so I didn't get everything. But I did find out about a few of their bases."
"Mark them on the map."
I unfolded a map I'd bought from a fairly expensive shop, and Rin marked spots here and there.
They were farther apart than I'd expected — and almost all of them were on the complete opposite side from the Dragon's Border.
So I won't be able to stop by on the way.
Nothing for it. Even just getting to the Dragon's Border from here would take an unknown amount of time.
As those thoughts ran through my head, I noticed Rin watching me with concern, and the two men standing blankly beside her.
"What about these two, then?"
"Mm... they're dead. I was keeping them around to extract information."
"So how are you going to dispose of the bodies?"
"......I, uh, have a method."
Rin hedged, clearly not wanting to say it out loud.
I was fairly sure she could handle the God of Death's brand to some degree by now — but carrying corpses around was not good for her mental health.
"In Bethel you didn't have a choice. You don't need to push yourself now."
"Mm. Okay."
She gave a small smile, but she hadn't really wanted to keep them either. The bodies were immediately swallowed by the black energy and vanished.
Watching the sensibilities of a once-innocent girl gradually twist and warp brought another wave of guilt.
"I... I'm sorry."
I started to rest a hand on her head to stroke her hair, then thought better of it — it felt like I was giving her the wrong idea — and hastily shifted to patting her shoulder instead.
Rin, who had been staring blankly, caught my hand in both of hers and placed it firmly on top of her own head.
"Don't say you're sorry. Say thank you."
"......Thank you."
"Yeah. It's fine. For you, Daniel, this much is nothing."
Even if Rin's senses had dulled and parts of her had broken, that damage was limited to things involving me. At the end of the day, she was still an eighteen-year-old schoolgirl.
Carrying corpses around and using the God of Death's power to read their thoughts or extract information must have taken a serious mental toll.
I slowly lowered my hand, asked her once more to look after my sister, and before leaving the room, took Dyna's hand one last time.
Dyna.
When I'd shut myself away in the Demon World Forest, she must have searched for me until her feet were raw and torn.
Maybe she'd cried and called my name over and over. Maybe her chest had ached so badly it hurt to breathe.
So now it's my turn.
I'm sorry I was so immature. I'm truly sorry I was such a foolish little brother who only ever thought of himself.
"This time, I'm the one who's going to move to get you back."
I pressed a slow kiss to the back of her hand, then turned and walked out of the room.
Outside, Ares was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, waiting. We locked eyes once, and I walked straight past him.
He didn't try to follow. He went into the room instead. Waiting for me as I left the hospital were Elise and her maid Bertia.
And standing beside them, a man in a dusty, rumpled robe with messy hair.
"You're leaving, then?"
"Yeah."
Elise nodded as if she'd already known exactly how I would act, and asked,
"Would it be all right if I accompanied you?"
"No. This is my business."
I answered firmly, but Elise seemed to have expected that reply as well and said nothing more. Instead, she introduced the man.
"He's a mercenary, but he's a mage who specializes in warp magic. I hear he can transport you near the Dragon's Border."
"......!"
A mage who could use warp and worked as a mercenary?
This wasn't a matter of money. Finding someone like that was like plucking a star from the sky.
He adjusted his thick-lensed glasses and spoke.
"Weirdo. That's my mercenary name — Weirdo. Just call me that. I can't drop you right on the Dragon's Border's doorstep, but I've set coordinates before at the Gods' Stele, which is about a day's travel out, so—"
"How much?"
I immediately pulled out my backpack, ready to pay Elise. Moving mages of this caliber naturally required a fortune.
I didn't want to owe anyone if I could help it, and I'd brought a large sum from the Murder Hotel's vault, so money wasn't an issue.
But Elise shook her head.
"I can't do anything else for you. At least let me do this much."
"But—"
"Please."
Her golden eyes shimmered with something close to pleading. In the end I said all right and changed the subject.
"Any word from Haini?"
"No. It seems Chappeni doesn't know anything useful."
Chappeni, who had come looking for Eve, had clearly said he'd contracted with a Dogfight member named Hare.
So I'd asked Haini Rosales — an inspector who had essentially become a Dogfight specialist — to interrogate him. Apparently it hadn't produced much.
"Right......"
Disappointing, but I didn't have time to stand around. I turned my gaze to the mage who called himself Weirdo.
"How long until we can leave?"
"Already set up. We can go right now."
Weirdo held out his hand. I thanked Elise and Bertia, who bowed as if seeing me off, and took it.
My vision began to blur.
"He's gone."
At Bertia's words, Elise gave a small nod and stared endlessly at the empty space where he had vanished, eyes full of quiet regret.
"Is this what it feels like to send the person you love off alone?"
"I imagine it's similar."
Ever since Elise had broken, Bertia's days had been nothing but regret and headaches — but seeing the Third Princess like this, she thought it might be a kind of growth in its own right.
A princess who had never cared about anyone, who had chased only pleasure and amusement, wearing an expression this wistful.
If she'd told her past self from just a few months ago, she wouldn't have believed it.
"Did he leave?"
"Yes. He's gone."
Rin came out of the hospital.
Daniel had asked her to look after Dyna, but she'd left that to Ares and come out herself.
"Everyone's waiting. Let's go."
"All right."
An odd pairing — Rin and Elise. The two girls who had once pointed fingers and provoked each other walked the same road today, united in purpose.
Their destination was Rin's room in the dormitory.
A crowd of female students had gathered there.
May Flove. Sen. Hayun. Eve. Tana.
Every one of them had some kind of connection to Daniel, and all of them waited for Rin and Elise with grave expressions. The moment Rin entered, she unfurled a prepared map on the wall.
She marked the same spots she'd shown Daniel — only this time there were far more of them, including cities and villages along the route to the Dragon's Border.
"I only told Daniel about the bases on the opposite side. Elise arranged a mage for him separately, so he should have gone straight to the Dragon's Border."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
"All right. We start from here."
Rin pointed to a village right near Elgrid.
"Daniel left to find a way to heal Dyna."
Her grip tightened on the pen.
"We do what we can. We crush the bastards who did this to her."
Elise, standing beside her, added,
"According to information Inspector Haini passed to the Headmaster, Hare is likely still operating in the vicinity of Elgrid."
She had told Daniel there was nothing — but now she shared the information extracted from Chappeni Krausch with the other girls.
"If we catch that little rat and make him squeal, he should talk soon enough, don't you think?"
Elise's soft laugh carried a peculiar chill.
"The only face we can confirm as Dogfight is Hare. If we find him, we take him no matter what. Everyone already knows how to counter illusion magic, right?"
No one answered at length — and that silence itself was a deeper show of trust.
Rin slowly set down the pen, drew a breath, and called up the image of Daniel she had just seen.
"Since he came to Aeos Academy, I've never seen Daniel look that sad. He was blaming himself. He was in pain......"
A heavy silence settled over the room.
Even Rin, who almost never used harsh language, couldn't hold it in this time.
"Before Daniel comes back, we catch every last one of these sons of bitches and lock them up."
In a small single room of the Aeos Academy dormitory, war was declared on Dogfight.