A Stranger Collapsed in the Desert
A person collapsed in the scorching desert.
Choosing a carriage equipped with an air-conditioning magic tool had been an excellent decision. No—after the choice to leave the kingdom following my discharge, it was the wisest one I had made.
The port town had been a little humid from the nearby sea, but never truly hot. On the way to Labyrinth City, though, the heat suddenly became unbearable. Right in the middle of the West Continent lay a desert!
It was not the kind of sand desert that swallowed your feet with every step, yet it was a hellish wasteland where not a single blade of grass grew and no water sprang forth. Outside, the weather was hot enough to cook a person alive, but inside the carriage the air was chilled and perfectly comfortable. The perceived temperature felt like about eighteen degrees.
At any rate, this desert seemed to stretch on for quite a distance. Once you entered it, you had to race through the night for two full days before you could escape.
"Then... is that one of the carriages that never made it out...?"
As we traveled across the desert, abandoned carriages and animal bones appeared here and there. The bones looked like they might have belonged to camels or horses. I had only glimpsed them from inside the moving carriage, so I could not examine them closely. It was unsettling all the same. If an accident happened out here, there would be no one to rescue you—and you would end up just like that.
"Big Sis... good morning..."
While I was staring outside with genuine interest, Erna—who had been sleeping soundly—opened her eyes. She looked rather tired, as if she had just woken from a deep sleep on the soft bed.
"You're up?"
"Yes. Were you looking outside?"
"Yeah. This is actually my first time seeing a desert."
Erna rose from the bed and sat beside me. When I gently stroked her hair, she accepted the touch with the pleased air of a cat.
"I've been watching since last night and still can't get enough of it. The desert at night is beautiful... and the desert by day is beautiful too..."
"Big Sis, you might have the soul of an explorer."
"An explorer?"
"People who take an interest in places like deserts or jungles and go exploring inside them are called explorers."
"Oh... they have those on the West Continent?"
"There's even an Explorers' Guild."
The Central Continent had nothing but plains and forests, so no such thing existed there. On the West Continent, with its many varied terrains, people like that apparently thrived. It sounded romantic. Trying it myself someday might not be so bad.
"I don't know a thing about the West Continent, so I'm really glad you're here with me, Erna."
"I'm the one who's happy I get to travel with you, Big Sis."
She was adorable. Part of me wanted to keep her with me on the road forever. But our destination was Labyrinth City Labyrinth. Once we arrived, the journey would end. I would settle down there for a while, too—eating delicious food, doing this and that, and living at a leisurely pace.
"Big Sis..."
"Mm-hmm... I'm already feeling a little sad myself... knowing the trip will be over soon..."
"Big Sis. That too, but right now I don't think that's the important thing."
Hm? Something more important than this?
Looking closely, Erna wore a thoroughly serious expression, as if something had happened.
"What's wrong?"
"Th-there..."
The place Erna pointed to was outside—the hellishly hot desert that looked as if standing still would cook you alive.
Hmm... was I seeing things? Or was it a mirage playing tricks on me? Why, in a desert like that... did I see the shape of a person?
"Erna... that is a person, right?"
"Yes. Anyone can see it's a person."
Finding someone in this scorching desert weather! And wearing the long robe typical of mages, no less!
"Driver! Please stop for a moment!"
I knocked on the door to the front compartment where the driver sat. Had he already noticed the collapsed figure? The carriage, which had been racing along, gradually slowed.
"Yes! Understood!"
The driver, proud of his fine voice, yanked hard on the reins. The horses whinnied, and the carriage came to a halt.
The instant it stopped I kicked the door open, leapt down, and ran toward the robed figure lying on the ground. Wearing clothes that thick in this insane weather? It was one of two things: either she was completely mad, or her carriage had met with an accident.
"Hey! Are you all right?! Are you still alive?!"
I seized the body of the woman whose head was pressed to the ground and shook her roughly. No response at all! This was bad. Had she already died?!
"Cough..."
"Thank goodness..."
Whew... fortunately, after a bit more shaking she exhaled and rolled onto her back. Looking closely, she wore not only the thick robe but also a heavy long-sleeved top and tight-fitting trousers. First I stripped off the robe and the rest of her clothes. I could understand wearing long garments to avoid the direct sun, but clothes this ridiculously thick in a desert were practically suicide!
I peeled away the sweat-soaked robe, then the upper garments. Next I moved to her lower half, removing the trousers and sliding the stockings down in one smooth motion. If I had never performed a rescue before, I might not have managed such actions. But with experience saving lives in flooded areas, it was nothing difficult. When someone is overheating, stripping their clothes to cool them is basic procedure.
Next...
"W-water... water..."
Just as I was thinking what else to do, she finally opened her mouth and asked for what she needed.
"Water? Got it!"
I pulled a canteen of cold water from my Inventory and held it out to her. I considered floating ice in it, but decided against it—sudden ice-cold water might do more harm than good.
"Can you drink?"
She looked exhausted. Rolling over must have used up the last of her strength. No choice, then. I would have to feed it to her myself.
I lifted her slightly and held her from behind, then slowly tilted the bottle toward her lips...
"Cough...! Cough, cough!"
"Ugh... this is bad..."
Perhaps from lying so long on the hot ground, her throat was in poor condition. Even when I poured the water slowly, she kept spitting it out instead of swallowing. And through it all I could feel her breathing growing weaker. At this rate she would truly die. The only option left was to put the water in directly...
This was an emergency... so it couldn't be helped, right?
"It's a little embarrassing, but..."
Helena of Free Port City had already stolen my first kiss during the rescue, so I no longer felt particularly attached to the idea. I laid the woman properly on the ground and checked whether anyone was nearby. I had told Erna not to come out. No one would witness me giving her water this way. Just in case, I raised an opaque wall of mana around us...
Once everything was ready, I took a mouthful of the cold water. After steeling myself for a moment...
I pressed my lips to those of a woman whose name I did not even know.
"Mmph...!!"
I slipped my tongue in to create a path so the water could flow smoothly, then gently forced it into her mouth. Watching her throat work as she swallowed gulp after gulp, I finally let out a breath of relief.
It was something I had once read in a firefighter's manual and an emergency-medicine text in my previous life. When you cannot immediately supply water to a dehydrated emergency patient, there are two methods. The first is direct injection by mouth. The second is a little too awkward to say out loud, so I will leave it unspoken.
"Pwah..."
I slowly drew my lips away and took a deep breath that filled my lungs all the way down to my chest. Then I took another mouthful of water and kissed the still-unconscious woman once more. A sweet sensation, and strangely my heart was pounding. I thought I finally understood why people compared kisses to chocolate.
After repeating the process about three times, a little color returned to her face. In fact, it went beyond mere color—her cheeks flushed red. Mine did the same. I had only performed an emergency rescue, yet my face had been burning for a while now. Was this the terror of the desert's heart? Yes, that had to be it.
She seemed stable enough to move, so I stored her clothes in my Inventory and carried her on my back to the carriage. From her appearance she looked about my age. Why on earth had she collapsed in the middle of the desert dressed like that? Still, I was glad she was alive... If I had found her just after her breathing stopped, it might have weighed on me psychologically. An enemy is one thing, but the death of a stranger—or someone close—always hurts. During the war there had been comrades I discovered a little too late.
"Esilly Big Sis! The person who collapsed!"
The moment I reached the carriage, Erna jumped down. She looked a little startled at the woman on my back, but I gave her a wry smile and stroked her head to reassure her.
"It's all right. I got some water into her and she's better now."
She was not perfectly fine, but she looked far better than before. I shifted her so Erna could see the peaceful face with closed eyes. Erna pressed a hand to her chest and exhaled in relief.
"Whew... thank goodness..."
She was truly relieved. She had probably wanted to rush out with me, but had held herself back because I told her not to come. What a good kid...
"For now, let's get her inside and lay her down."
"I-I already prepared it. You can put her on the bed at the far end."
There were four beds in the carriage. Enge and Erna usually slept close together, so two beds had been left empty. We had not even laid out blankets or pillows on them, yet now one was properly made up. Priority was getting the collapsed woman settled.
I carefully laid the woman I was carrying onto the bed. Strangely, her face still held a flush like the red of sunset.
"Why is her face still so red?"
"Maybe she has a fever? She was bundled up so tightly earlier, and now she's completely undressed."
A sudden drop in body temperature causing a chill? Now that I thought about it, that was possible. I took out the clothes she had been wearing and placed them on the bed. I had shaken the sand off earlier, so they were not particularly dirty. Still, putting them back on her felt wrong. Maybe I should wash them first.
"Erna? I'm about to do some laundry—could you hand me those clothes?"
But Erna's expression changed the moment she looked at the garments on the bed. She picked them up and stared fixedly. Looking closer, I saw gold embroidery. A crest? A family emblem?
"Do you recognize that crest?"
If so, we could take her home. She would probably wake before then, though.
Erna nodded at my question, then slowly turned her head toward me. Why was she suddenly breaking out in a cold sweat? Was she hot? Should I lower the temperature a little more?
"Big Sis... this is... the family crest of the leader house of the Feudal Alliance..."
"The Feudal Alliance... you mean the one on the West Continent?"
The West Continent had no kingdoms or empires. Feudal nobles who served no monarch ruled their own territories, gathering around a leader of equal standing rather than a sovereign, and deciding major national affairs through council. The port town we had left not long ago was the same. Its lord accepted no interference and governed the territory autonomously.
And the leader of that Feudal Alliance... in a way, the equivalent of a king...
"Then this person is..."
Surely not... someone from the leader's house?
Nah... no way.