For a second there, I was almost moved enough to strike a victory pose. I’d been wondering why Dirk even came to Majaar in the first place, but now I was glad he was here. And I’d just pretend I didn’t hear the whole bit about scheming from the shadows while keeping records.
As I watched the two of them bicker as if we didn’t have a calamity bearing down on us, Lucas casually tossed Barnabash out the window and then held his hand out to me.
“Dirk, closing the barrier will take mana, so don’t go making any massive holes in it. Barnabash, take on your black dragon form. Cecilia.”
“Y-yes!”
“Let’s go.”
It felt like he’d just said, “I love you.”
His strong, gentle words nourished me, and I couldn’t take my eyes off his gloved hand.
If this life really is my atonement for a past one, then the goddess really blessed me with something beautiful!
I would never stop being grateful for this life, for being able to walk on the same ground, look at the same world, and reach forward together, hand in hand.
No matter what happened from here on out, I would always remember this moment. I’d fight my way through anything again and again if it was for this hand.
“Yes, Lukie.”
I took his hand. He pulled me up onto the black dragon, and I lifted my gaze to the same sky his golden eyes were fixed upon.
As I busied myself healing the wounded in front of me, I deliberately looked away from the chunks of wyrm flesh sliding down the transparent barrier.
“I think my weapon is a terrible match for these things,” Dirk muttered beside me. “But Lukie’s barrier is ridiculously dense. It sucks up all of my mana. Niklas, will you trade swords with me?”
Did he just admit that he’s struggling?
“No. You’re the one who forced me to switch to a sword just because you said the wires looked cooler. This is your mess, so you clean it up.”
“Aww, really? They’re great against people, you know…”
Despite his complaints, he flicked his wrist and imbued mana into the wires, manipulating them with practiced ease. Niklas had already diced one of the wyrms up, and now Dirk was using the wires to shred it to ribbons.
A pile of slimy wyrm guts had built up around him. If those were human bodies, it would’ve been quite the horror show. I flinched.
I needed to change the subject before I got hit with a creepy “So, you heard that, did you?” from Dirk.
“Come to think of it,” I said, “we don’t really see wyrms on the Bern side of the border forest, do we?”
“That’s true. I don’t remember the knights ever having to fight them much. But I swear the insides of these are a different color. I wonder what Egrich has been doing to these monsters this time.”
“A different color?”
Even though he probably meant it as an offhand remark, there was a weird edge in his voice. I couldn’t help but stare back in concern as he held up the barrier.
Then, he glanced over his shoulder and gave me a wink.
“Still, the fact that you can tend to all these people without missing a beat and still hold a full conversation on a battlefield like this? Honestly, my dear sister-in-law, you’re doing the work of the entire White Order all by yourself. You’ve been healing some serious injuries without even flinching. All those sympathy visits weren’t for nothing, huh? Finn, how many more are there?”
Just then, Finn landed on the ground with a heavy thud, carrying an injured man. A smaller wyrm loomed behind him.
With a wave of his hand, Dirk opened an entryway in the barrier the size of a person. With his other hand, he conjured an ice arrow and took the wyrm out in one clean shot before speaking to Finn. “Damn it… I picked up a mana signal from one more person. They’re trapped under debris. Elsa’s on it.”
I rushed over to the man Finn set down and gasped. “He’s the man from the pastry shop!” His voice echoed in my mind. I’ll throw something in extra! And I bit my lip hard.
“Anna, Kate, on my signal, set his arm and leg in place and hold them.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
The moment I gave those orders, I drew healing sigils with my fingers over the man, whose arm and leg were bent the wrong way. He was also bleeding badly.
A glowing magic circle rose into the air, lines of light forming the spell as it condensed toward the center. I raised the completed spell over his body and pressed my palms together.
“Restore him.”
Restore this child of the goddess to perfect health, I prayed silently as the magic circle blended with both my mana and something deeper and then sank into his wounded limbs. Just as the magic set in, his screams rang out inside the dome.
I kept my hands pressed tightly together, holding firm. Moments later, glittering rainbow-colored particles scattered into the air, and the color returned to the man’s face.
“Wh-where am I? Are you from Bern?”
“You’re all right now. But I’ve just finished healing you, so you should stay still.”
“M-my arm, my fingers… I can move them… Thank you! Thank you so much!”
I let out a sigh of relief as he cried with gratitude, but then…
Boom!
The ground shook. A deafening blast roared through the air, and a massive wyrm rose up right in front of us.
Its mouth gaped wide, as if to swallow everything before it. Blade-like teeth couched in circular rows within its maw, crimson chunks of flesh stuck between them. I felt a chill run through me.
But what was even more terrifying was the sight of Elsa, who appeared to be holding someone in her arms as she dodged the wyrm’s attacks.