“And there’s a ton of them, too! Yesss, all-you-can-eat wyrms! Let’s see how many I can get!”
“There are at least twenty, and they’re moving fast. Kill as many as you can. Don’t let them cause any damage,” Lucas instructed.
“How do you even know that?! Well, I realized it too! And what do you mean, don’t let them cause any damage? That’s how I feed! I wait until they burst out, and then I roast them!” Barnabash argued.
“Then drop an ice arrow on the ones that try to surface,” Lucas said.
“What about after that?!”
“Dig them up.”
“I’m a dragon, not a dog!”
“Just go! Don’t let them get into the bazaar.”
Lucas fired off orders to Barnabash, still holding me in his arms. He was deadly calm, and his tone had changed so abruptly that it made my blood run cold.
I instinctively grabbed a fistful of his shirt. He gently set me down and gave me a reassuring smile. “Sorry about that. A group of monsters just appeared inside the detection barrier, and for some reason, they’re heading this way.”
“Monsters?!”
He said that last part loudly enough for Prince Islan and Dirk to hear. Dirk immediately sprang into action.
“Prince Islan, if you’re willing to trust the Hero’s intel, please dispatch your main forces to the bazaar, near the border of the desert,” he instructed. “Focus on protecting the citizens and stopping the monsters from breaching the area. Princess Yana, if any of Bern’s mercenaries are stationed in Aram, invoke the name of House Herbst and rally them to action. The monsters are wyrms, but there are far too many. We’ll need every available unit.”
“Understood.” Prince Islan nodded and turned to Yana, but suddenly, the ground rumbled beneath our feet.
Startled, Yana rushed to the window and threw it open. She gasped at what she saw.
A thick cloud of sand was rising in the distance beyond the dunes. As it drew closer, a fountain of dust exploded skyward like a geyser. A grotesque monster burst from the spray, its form like that of a giant worm with legs—something that looked completely out of place in the desert. Its massive body, large as a tree trunk, twisted once before plunging back underground, tunneling straight toward us at terrifying speed.
The ground rippled where it traveled beneath, bulging up in multiple places like some kind of giant mole was carving through the earth. Yana dropped to her knees as she clutched the window frame, and I rushed over to her.
“Princess Yana, are you all right?”
“Wh-why is this happening? I’ve never seen anything like this before!” She clung to my arm, her face as pale as a ghost. I almost told her it would be okay, but I swallowed my words.
Wyrms weren’t known to move in packs. They had enormous appetites and hunted most other monsters in their territory, so they kept a certain distance from each other.
On top of that, their thick outer hides made them very hard to kill. They were Rank B monsters. Normally, it would take ten elite knights from Bern’s Black and White Knight Order to take down just one of them. And now twenty of them had appeared at once.
This wasn’t just an incident. It was a full-blown catastrophe. Citizens of Aram were going to die. A lot of them.
It was no wonder Yana was terrified to the point of breaking. But she was set to become the future queen of Majaar. She had to be the one giving orders and making calls in an emergency.
So what she needed right now wasn’t some empty reassurance. It was guidance. Something that could help her get through this.
“Princess Yana, please stand. You need to start giving orders. If you don’t, the damage will only spread.”
“But how are we supposed to fight something like that?”
“Fighting isn’t the only way to defeat something. First, we have to evacuate anyone who can’t move. And if you’re mobilizing a combat unit, you need to set up a place to bring the wounded. Lukie, where should we position the vanguard?” I turned to Lucas while holding Yana steady. He looked at me for a moment and then replied.
“Are you trying to say you plan to use your healing magic out there? That you, my wife, want to join the vanguard during a clearly orchestrated wyrm attack?”
Was he frustrated? Angry? Or was he trying to see if I was scared?
His golden eyes burned so bright, I almost flinched. His voice was low and steady, like it was pulling me underwater, impossible to resist.
There was no mistaking the threat in his tone of voice. It was the voice of someone saying, “I absolutely hate this because I care too much.”
So I answered with just as much passion in my voice. “Even if the main unit has a healer, there will always be someone in need of help. And the severely injured will need proper treatment if we’re to evacuate them. I can use my magic to provide emergency first aid. You’re the one leading the charge, Lukie. It’d be a waste of your time and mana to also handle the healing. Please let me do it.”
I want to be by your side. You vowed to fight and protect. I vowed to live and support you. Let me be your sheath, always by your side.
Lucas frowned deeply, clearly displeased. I looked him straight in the eye and bowed my head.
He let out a small sigh and then, without a word, conjured Eckesachs. “That stubborn resolve of yours makes me fall for you all over again, and it’s seriously infuriating. But that’s also exactly why I’m here.”
The sacred greatsword was nearly two-thirds of Lucas’s height, and it shimmered with the same gold as his eyes.
As he gripped its hilt, which glowed and pulsed like it yearned for the fight, I found myself holding my breath and blushing at his completely unreasonable threat.