Caught in the Middle
“Ugh.”
Exhaustion pressed hard against the corners of my eyes, as if I’d just come off a fight. Without thinking, I let out a sound and dug my fingers into my eyelids, rubbing them hard.
Still, the satisfaction of having finished one major job carried me toward the next hospital room.
As I turned the doorknob, I thought I should have called the witches first—but when I stepped inside, the witches and Eris were already waiting for me in this room.
“……Noona.”
Unlike the other kids, Dyna noona had a room to herself. She sat on the bed, looking at me, and offered a small smile.
It felt like coming home to a sister waiting for me—except the horn jutting from her forehead and the wings on her back didn’t so much create a sense of dissonance as they did a dull, aching pain.
“Daniel. You’re here?”
Even though she had to be the one suffering most, she acted as if nothing were wrong, patting the chair beside her and telling me to sit.
“How’s your body?”
A question I’d already asked more times than I could count today. Dyna noona still didn’t let the smile leave her face as she answered.
“Yeah. I’m used to it enough by now.”
I didn’t ask what she meant by “used to it,” and she didn’t offer. I glanced sideways at the Great Witch sitting nearby and asked,
“The treatment?”
This was the product of Number 17, born of the witches. I’d assumed that someone of the Great Witch’s caliber would be able to fix it—
“It will be difficult.”
The answer that came back crushed my chest.
“Why? You should be able to do it. You’ve researched magic for ages. Don’t tell me you can’t handle something made from materials you yourselves talk about.”
When I pressed her in a raised voice, noona took my hand and told me to calm down, and Eris came over and rested a hand on my shoulder.
“Transplanting it would require research, but we could probably approximate it to some degree. Extracting it, however, is another matter entirely.”
The Great Witch began her explanation calmly. It was a high-level matter involving magic, the human body, and the abilities of magical beasts, so honestly I struggled to follow—
but Adrina broke it down for me from the side.
“Think of it like dye mixed into water. We can squeeze the dye in just fine. But we can’t reverse it and pull it back out.”
“……”
My fists clenched.
In the end, that meant noona would have to live the rest of her life like this.
“For now, I’ll mass-produce a magical potion that can hide the dragonian traits before I go. I hear you don’t have long until graduation?”
At the Great Witch’s question, noona nodded. As a fifth-year at Aeos Academy, she had less than half a year left of her time there.
“Yes. At this point it’s basically just graduation prep, so I don’t even need to attend lectures.”
“Is that so? All the better, then.”
“What’s better about it.”
Every single word out of the Great Witch’s mouth had been getting under my skin. I snapped at her, but Eris cut in, telling me not to worry.
“I’ll leave to find a cure. So calm down a little, Daniel.”
“You, Eris?”
“There’s a child in Yggdrasil who became a dragonian as well. And at the Dragon’s Border, they’ve already taken an Inquisitor prisoner. He might know something.”
“……I’ll go too.”
I said we should leave right away, but Eris shook her head.
“Absolutely not.”
“……”
“You’re a student, Daniel. Students study at the academy. I’ll find a solution to this situation. And it won’t just be me. Jaguar and Hassim, the ones you met last time, have agreed to come along.”
Those two I could more or less trust. We hadn’t spent enough time together to judge their character, but their high standing inspired confidence.
“I’m going too. We witches can’t just dodge responsibility.”
Adrina also smiled lightly, telling me not to worry.
I still wanted to go with them—but Dyna noona, who had been holding my hand, squeezed it tighter.
“We don’t have many days left at the academy together. Stay with noona.”
I let out a long breath and spoke to Eris.
“……There’s a beastman with tiger ears I let get away. Chase that one and something might turn up.”
In the end, I had no choice but to take a step back.
After that, noona and I talked about this and that. The conversation was more ordinary than I’d expected, and little by little my heart eased.
My mouth was getting tired, so I stepped out for a bit of air.
Outside the room, Rin was leaning against the wall, staring blankly out the window.
“Rin?”
When she saw me come out, she asked with a considerate smile,
“Did you talk things through with unnie?”
Realizing she’d deliberately waited outside so she wouldn’t interrupt my conversation with Dyna noona, I scratched the back of my head, a little embarrassed.
“Yeah, more or less.”
“Hehe. Look at you getting shy.”
If you can tell, don’t say it out loud.
“You’re not hurt anywhere?”
“Nope. You protected me.”
Rin smiled, bashful. She was beautiful enough to look like a painting, and for a moment I almost remembered why I’d liked this girl when we were kids.
“You kept your promise, huh?”
“……”
The promise I’d made in Yggdrasil—to protect her—rose again in my mind. My face started to heat up a little too, so I tried to slip away, but Rin followed.
“What’s wrong?”
Wondering if something was up, I turned back—and Rin puffed out her cheeks, looking thoroughly unsatisfied.
“What about me?”
“……Huh?”
“You patted Eve and Sen on the head, and you high-fived Hayun.”
“W-wait a second!”
I lunged to cover her mouth in a panic, but she leaned back and kept going, playful.
“You kissed Elise on the back of the hand, and you hugged May.”
Rin made a loud, deliberate “tch” for my benefit, crossed her arms, and asked,
“So what about me? Your childhood friend—who single-handedly smashed a Dogfight base and fought their leader?”
What was I supposed to say in a situation like this. This was Ares’s specialty; I had nothing useful to offer.
“Umm… want me to buy you a meal?”
Remembering Tana telling me to treat everyone, I tried it on the off chance—but Rin made an X with her fingers.
“Try again.”
Rejected.
From past experience, I knew that if I didn’t settle this properly here, the fallout later would be catastrophic. I started thinking hard—
fortunately, Rin offered the answer first.
“Can’t you do it just one more time?”
“……Do what?”
I asked back, uneasy. Rin smiled mischievously and took a step closer.
“What you said to me in Yggdrasil. Say it again—just once. While you hug me.”
I don’t want to.
Back then my emotions had been running high. I didn’t have a face thick enough to deliver a line like that in broad daylight.
“Come on. Come on.”
She uncrossed my arms and slipped right into my embrace. It was awkward, but I figured I should get it over with while no one was walking the halls, so I said it quickly.
“I’ll—I’ll protect you.”
“Yeah. Thank you.”
Rin hugged me tight and buried her face in my chest. I wondered if she was smelling me and felt even more flustered—then a whisper resonated through my whole body.
“I’ll protect you too, Daniel.”
For an instant, a chill ran through me that “goosebumps” didn’t begin to cover. I tensed without meaning to—but when she lifted her head and met my eyes, Rin’s expression was pure sunshine.
Did I imagine that?
No. There was no way I’d misread something like that.
“Ah, that was nice. I’m gonna go!”
Rin let go and fled, trying to hide her flushed face.
I was still staring after her running down the corridor, feeling thoroughly thrown, when—
“Hmm?”
A voice from behind. Different in texture from a moment ago, but it stabbed into my back all the same—clear and sharp.
“You two seem close.”
A dizzying feeling dropped straight into my chest. I spun around at once and started making excuses to the elf whose mood looked thoroughly foul.
“No, it’s not like that. She went through a lot this time, so it was just a simple hug to say thanks—”
“Yes, well. Fine.”
Ah. This was bad.
She was sulking. Properly sulking.
“I’ve been waiting this whole time, still remembering the confession a certain someone made to me. Human feelings burn hot and cool off just as fast, I see.”
“No, that’s not it!”
“No, it’s fine. I did reject the confession, after all. Of course, I also told you that you seemed tangled up in a lot of things, and that once you’d sorted all that out, you should come confess again.”
“……”
Eris’s eyes widened as she asked again.
“Don’t tell me you actually took that as a real rejection?”
“O-of course not!”
I remembered Hayun advising me that it wasn’t that I had no chance with her—that the possibility was more than enough.
“L-let’s make this clear, Daniel!”
Eris suddenly raised her voice. Startled by her intensity, I nodded at once—and she took a few more steps and stood right in front of me.
“I’m waiting for you, Daniel. I’ve been making all kinds of preparations in the forest, and I’ve even been telling the other elves that a Warden can d-date a human.”
“……”
I felt my face go hot all at once.
I had no idea how to respond—but I at least understood that keeping my mouth shut right now was the way to honor her courage.
“I know you have complicated circumstances tangled around you! So! Uh, that is……”
She seemed to lose the thread of what she meant to say, fumbled for a moment, and finally spoke like a complaint.
“Please don’t make me wait too long.”
Ares Heliace stared blankly at the red-haired girl sleeping beside him—Arni Durattan—and sank into thought.
His right hand rested on top of her head.
He’d thought he would never hold a sword again for the rest of his life—but the old woman Daniel McLane had brought had reattached the hand.
She’d said it would move normally again with a little time, and sure enough, his fingers were slowly moving, and he could feel them.
And on the back of that hand, the Mark of Helios.
Ares couldn’t help feeling unsettled. Even now, looking at the mark brought back the face of that monstrous mage who had cut off his hand.
“Why.”
He’d thought the power was gone. That the Sun God’s power had left him—and for all the regret, there had been a faint sense of relief.
He drew out his left hand, which he’d kept carefully hidden under the blanket.
The same mark was carved into the back of his left hand as well.
The day after his right hand was severed, the mark had appeared on his left. Looking at it, Ares felt something close to fear.
What does this even mean?
Whether a hand was cut off or the mark peeled away, it made no difference to Helios’s choice.
What was this god’s intent? What, exactly, did he want from him?
Ares’s thoughts could only grow deeper.