After the children ate, there was nothing left to do but sleep. They huddled together under the roof they made from the wood they gathered and settled down. Naturally, I wasn’t allowed to join them, so I slept on the open ground. I decided to be satisfied with the fact that I didn’t have to worry about anyone bothering me and lay down beside my fire while the dragon girl slept leaning against a nearby tree.
A shadow approached her. The moment it brandished its knife, her eyes flew open, and her tail knocked the weapon from its hand. Another figure leaped at her from the side, but she was too drowsy to avoid it. Another knife flew toward her. I pushed her out of the way, the blade sinking into my stomach.
“What?!” the perpetrator, Hieda, cried out in surprise. She clearly didn’t expect me to protect the dragon girl.
I grabbed the wrist of her stabbing hand and, with the knife in my other hand, I cut open her throat. Blood gushed from the wound and her mouth, choking her. Her body pulled me down as she fell limp, and my knees hit the ground. I looked over my shoulder to see the dragon girl rampaging against several other children. My gaze returned to my own body.
“Great,” I muttered. Blood was seeping out from my abdomen.
I held the knife firmly in place where it pierced my clothing and looked at the dragon girl again. Seven kids were attacking her—one had been the snakeborn girl. The others were the snakeborn’s female roommate and some boys she was close to.
“Hieda!” one of the boys shouted when he saw her on the ground, blood flowing from her neck. The essence around his body flared and increased in volume. He wanted revenge.
Unfortunately for him, the dragon girl was now fully awake, and he was no match for her. The children were taking her blows one after another, their movements slowing. She didn’t have a knife. Someone must have stolen it from her before the attack. It meant her swipes weren’t lethal, and it was taking a while for her to thin out her assailants.
I touched my fingertips to the surface of the blade in my stomach. It felt slimy. A light green liquid, not blood, was dripping from it. The realization sank in, and with it came an increase in pain that made me gasp.
“Hardhead’s out for the count,” said one of the attackers. “The poison’s working.”
The dragon girl reacted, though she shouldn’t have. The kids had figured out that I was more than just a meat shield to her. Their eyes fell on me. I tried to ready my knife and prepare to fight back, but my essence was running wild, making it impossible to control.
The poison acted on essence. That meant it probably caused organ damage too. A poison that worked on the dragon girl, one that interfered with essence, the source of her strength, would be the most effective choice.
The blade was still lodged in my stomach. Unable to use my essence to mitigate anything, I fell to my knees again. The attackers came at me. They brandished their knives, but just as I saw my own face reflected in them, a series of powerful shock waves washed over us. Then came the roar.
The dragon girl’s roar had always been her most powerful and troublesome weapon. Now it was strong enough to unleash a physical wave that battered into our attackers. It pierced their eardrums and rendered some of them unconscious, their ears bleeding. But the others were still able to fight. Rather than chipping away at their numbers, the sound had woken up the other children. I sincerely doubted the newcomers would take our side. We would have even more enemies now than before the dragon girl unleashed her roar.
Most of the kids lived in fear of reprisal from the former punching bag. Even if they wouldn’t attack us unprompted, it was highly likely that they would jump on the bandwagon. Realizing this, the dragon girl moved before she could be pinned down by their numbers. Picking me up by the scruff of my neck, she followed the trap-free path into the forest. They couldn’t follow us. They hadn’t seen the work we had been doing, so they had no guarantee that we had removed all the traps.
The dragon girl jumped up into a tree, adjusted her grip so she was now carrying me under one arm, then moved onto the neighboring branches. Though her earlier roar disoriented my sense of balance, I tried to focus on our surroundings. It was a good thing I had explored this area in daylight.
“That way...” Making sure she could see me, I pointed toward a place we could set up a decent camp.
She clicked her tongue at being ordered about before running in the direction I’d indicated. We arrived in no time. A lone large tree was growing among the thick shrubbery of the forest. At its base was a cavity about the size of a small igloo that I’d noted earlier would make a good temporary shelter. It also placed us far away from the other children.
The dragon girl squeezed herself in that space with me still under her arm. While we didn’t need to worry about our attackers anymore, I still had an open wound in my stomach, and it was making breathing more difficult.
“Snake boy.” The dragon girl looked at my injury and frowned. The time was perhaps inappropriate, but it struck me that I had never seen her make that expression before. “Snake boy...” Her gaze wavered. She kept looking at the wound and away over and over, dabbing at it now and then.
There was only one answer of who supplied the snakeborn girl with poison. I also knew the nature of the toxin—it greatly enhanced the power of essence while inflicting major organ damage. High doses led to essence rising to uncontrollable levels, organ failure, and, in the worst cases, death. That said, if it was administered orally along with an herb that hindered its absorption, its effects could be suppressed.
Though I had a poisonous plant that could counter it, it was back at the original camp. I was facing the worst-case scenario, feeling the clock ticking toward my death. My thoughts were on the verge of running in circles. To anchor myself, I grabbed the tiny hand that was reaching toward my wound.
I was gasping now and covered in a cold sweat. It couldn’t end here. I needed to remember everything that had happened up till now, every last detail. I needed to squeeze it from my brain, even if it turned out there was nothing there that could save me. The waves of my memory crashed over me, images flashing nonstop before my eyes. The altar. My first glimpse of the sky. Forest. People. Every single word exchanged in every single conversation.
“What kind of medicine did you make with the scales I gave you before?”
The discussion I had with Sister. I asked her about the scales the dragon girl had shed. As I recalled, she replied, “I looked into it afterward. Apparently, blood’s better than scales for making medicine.”
What could you use scales for, then?
That didn’t matter right now.
“You think? But that girl with the huge tail, she’s still in her reflection room, right?”
The demonborn I used to share a room with. As it turned out, the dragon girl had rebelled to the point of near death.
I went back further, recalling the room where the memories of my previous life resurfaced.
There was an odd smell in the room, though I might have been imagining it.
In all likelihood, the reflection rooms had been filled with a drug-based gas that caused hallucinations. I wondered why it hadn’t worked on the dragon girl.
“Blood...” I said.
She gave me a questioning look.
“Your blood... Medicine...”
I had no idea if this would work, but my memories told me that her blood had an antidotal effect.
She picked up the knife, cut a line into her palm, formed a fist, and then squeezed it over my wound. The blood dripped through her fingers. The lukewarm liquid stung horribly as it came into contact with my injury, and I groaned in pain.
What if we don’t have the same blood type? Does the concept of blood types even exist in this world? I endured the agony as my head spouted nonsense.
“Snake boy. Open your mouth.”
I obeyed with a grunt. Her freshly squeezed blood dripped down my throat. Who knew if taking it orally would have an effect on an external wound? I was willing to try anything, so I forced myself to swallow the drops of blood.
It felt like I was being burned from the inside out. At the same time, I was freezing. I gripped the dragon girl’s wrist with enough force to snap it. It was the only thing that kept me conscious.