Rurii slid up and stretched out under Marena’s body, ready to transport her to the medics waiting at the defensive line.
“I’ll fight enough for the both of us,” said Ludger. “So don’t worry about a thing. Just rest.”
The words showed he was putting on a brave front, and he leaned down to plant a kiss on his wife’s lips before standing to his feet, tears running down his face.
“I know,” Marena replied. “Now you go out there and you make sure you win.”
In her words was an unspoken plea that he return safe.
“What other option is there?” he said. “No way am I going to leave my gorgeous wife a widow.”
A physicker put a hand to Ludger’s cheek and healed his cut. He then ran off to regroup with the others.
At the same time, physickers and adventurers were working tirelessly to nurse Nadia and many other mages back to health. Nadia had fainted when she’d depleted the entirety of her magical reserves in an instant to protect those around her from the dragon’s burst of magical energy. It had been a dangerous move—had she failed in her attempt, she would have taken out even those who were now fighting to help her.
“So reckless...!” uttered Clemens.
He tried to get Nadia to drink a stimulant, but the contents simply flowed down her cheek and pooled on the ground.
“Damn it!” he cried.
He poured the stimulant into his own mouth, then covered her lips with his own. He did not think twice—this was the only thing left that he could do to bring her back, though it was grueling work.
Even then, however, Nadia remained as still as the dead. Clemens pushed away any thoughts of worst-case scenarios and fished a hand into the pouch at Nadia’s waist. He pulled forth a high-grade magical recovery potion, intent on replenishing her reserves, and sure that it would bring her back to her senses.
Bit by bit, he fed her the contents of the potion, praying for her to wake. Little by little, as he persisted, the color began to return to her face. Once she’d been fed a whole five potions, she opened her eyes.
“To think I’d wake up to the worried, troubled look on your face,” she whispered with a chuckle. “It’s exactly how you looked the morning after.”
It was a joke that only the two of them understood, and Clemens immediately blushed.
“The sheer gall...” he murmured.
His expression was one of both relief and exasperation. Behind him, Daniel and Yksel leapt to their feet, screaming.
“Ugh! The heck?!” cried one.
“Gah, this is putrid! Yuck!” cried the other.
With nobody to transfer any potions to them mouth-to-mouth, medicine had not been administered to the two mages. A frustrated Eir had instead shoved its own stimulant—squeezed from its own leaves—down their throats. It was a bold, aggressive move, but the effects were undeniable. And while the two were likely to suffer mild nausea for a few days as a side effect, they at least had their senses back. The rest they could worry about later.
The two mages, both of whom had come hurtling back to reality thanks to the effects of the liquid—which was like pure, unfiltered, concentrated bitterness—drank down a number of magical recovery potions in quick succession. None could tell whether they were doing so to regain lost magical energy, or to wash away the awful taste still lingering in their mouths.
“Ah?” murmured Eir.
The familiar shook its leaves as if to say, “And to think my partner imbibes the stuff without so much as a second thought.”
Daniel and Yksel were making such unexpected fools of themselves that Nadia and Clemens couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
I really didn’t know what was going to happen for a second there... thought Clemens.
The mages were now standing under their own power, and with that, the tension in Clemens’s expression bled away.
The fight isn’t over yet.
One by one, adventurers rose. They’d lost a third of their number to the dragon’s magical attack, but many of those had been replaced by others who had since recovered from the dragon’s attack on their mental state.
We still stand. We can still fight.
News had just arrived, informing them that the adventurers en route would arrive in about an hour. A portion of the northern knights who had been handling stampede control were also being redirected to the lake to face the dragon—after implementing Shiori’s search magic strategy, they’d seen results and deemed the situation largely under control.
The dragon had lost its tail. One wing was all but gone. The adventurers were driven by hope—the belief that they could still slay the beast.
“In formation!” barked Zack. “Ready yourselves for a full assault!”
He sent Linus—the lightest and nimblest among them—to bring word to the knights. It was time to combine forces.
“Now the knights can finally fulfill their duty...” whispered one among them.
The knights had been ordered to take up position as “insurance” in the case that the adventurers—all of them technically civilians—fell at the front line. But when it came to fighting dragons, sending waves of soldiers to attack was in fact a dangerous tactic, and doing so in the past had led to huge losses. Such deaths were to be avoided at all costs, and so the knights were ordered to stay back until such a time as the dragon’s mobility was neutralized. Only the medics and supply squads were authorized to provide direct support.
The knights, who had been forced to wait while the adventurers were broken down and hit by waves of magical energy, trembled with anticipation as they waited for the order to charge.
The dragon began to rise from the epicenter of the magical blast. Its face was covered in dirt, grime, and its own spittle. Its eyes, once as empty as cold glass marbles, now wavered with a flash of eerie light. It was a creature that oozed with despair and loneliness, but it now looked down at the dwarfish humans by its feet with clear enmity. It recognized that here were threats that needed to be exterminated.
Zack met the dragon’s gaze head-on, wiping the dripping blood from his forehead as he grinned. Everybody was hurt, covered in both their blood and the dragon’s, but no one had died yet. None of them were heroes setting foot in Valhalla.
We aren’t the ones who’ll meet the goddess today. That honor belongs to you, you pitiful beast.
Zack raised his greatsword high.
“Begin the assault! Everybody, attack!”