“I’ve never heard of such symptoms,” Lunamaria said, her brow furrowed in shock and confusion when I told her what I’d seen. As for Miroslav, she was sleeping like the dead, so I didn’t bother waking her. According to Lunamaria, she’d been up until morning tirelessly working on the experiment I’d asked her to—namely, mixing my blood in with an antidote and testing its effectiveness. Guess it was a tall order for her.
I turned to Lunamaria and replied, “Well, the part about it being incurable is just speculation on my part. There might be something we can do after all, and I’m just not aware of it.”
“No, master. There must have been a reason you felt it was incurable. In other words, the disease was really that serious. You’re probably not far off the mark.”
Wearing her dark-purple sage robes, Lunamaria frowned in thought. It was an odd feeling for someone as intelligent as her to trust my intuition more than I did. Then again, she had recognized my Anima, the Soul Eater, within me. If she’d acknowledged my intuition as the intuition of a dragon, perhaps she simply felt it was worth trusting on principle.
As I was lost in thought, however, her face clouded over. When I peered into her eyes, wondering what was the matter, she began stringing words together hesitantly.
“Master...keep in mind...this is just a guess on my part...so don’t be too alarmed just yet, but...”
“What is it?”
“Actually, when I heard your speculation just now, a certain passage from an old myth came to mind,” she said, running her fingers through her golden hair.
“A myth?”
“Yes. This particular myth speaks of a poison incurable by any means—a poison that killed a god,” she said.
Gods were supposed to be immortal. Normally they couldn’t be killed by something like poison. But Lunamaria went on to say that one poison had made a god suffer so badly that he’d thrown away his immortality, finding death preferable to eternal agony. Another immortal hero, famous for his Twelve Penances, had been afflicted with this poison, couldn’t endure the agony, and burned to death by setting himself on fire. And the origin of this dreadful poison was...
“The toxic hydra of many heads,” she finished.
“A dragon, in other words. An illusory beast.” I’d already heard of the hydra rather recently, in fact, back when the basilisk had appeared and turned a portion of Titus Forest into a Sea of Rot, Lunamaria herself had mentioned the name. The nation to Kanaria’s south was known as the Holy Monarchy today, but even farther south lay a massive Sea of Rot, and that rot had come from the hydra’s corpse upon death. Therefore, it sounded like Lunamaria was worried that a hydra had appeared in Titus Forest.
But she wasn’t finished. “However, if a hydra really did appear in the forest, the entire forest would be rotting by now. So rather than the hydra being in the forest, it’s probably more like the conditions there are appropriate for it to appear.”
Unlike lower-class dragons like wyverns, true dragons weren’t born. They came upon the world like lightning, typhoons, or earthquakes. Or perhaps even more accurately, volcanic eruptions. In other words, they were natural phenomena that appeared when the world’s conditions were right for them to appear. Fantastic calamities of flesh and blood—those were dragons in a nutshell. Conversely, if even one of the appropriate conditions wasn’t met, they wouldn’t show up. That fickleness was also characteristic of dragons.
If the conditions were now right for a hydra to appear, it meant that whatever condition was keeping the beast from manifesting in the world up until now had been removed. Either that, or it had been removed long ago and the hydra had been gradually manifesting all this time, little by little. If the reason for the stampede and the incurable poison was that a hydra had manifested enough for denizens of this world to notice, then...
“We’re in deep shit.”
“Indeed. That’s only if my guess is correct, however.”
“I mean, in this case, I’d be thrilled to learn you were way off base. But for now, just to err on the side of caution, we should operate on the premise that you’re right.”
First we needed to inform Ishka’s government, the guild, and the slave trader association of this possibility. Of course, chances were they wouldn’t believe us at first. They might even laugh us out of the room, but I didn’t want them to come back to me later and complain I hadn’t warned them. Next, I needed to get Seele and Suzume out of there. Perhaps I could send them back to the royal capital for the time being, where it was safe. I needed to let Duke Dragonaut know about the situation anyway. After that, depending on the situation, I could send them out of the kingdom, perhaps to the empire or the Holy Monarchy.
At that moment, the village of Merte appeared in the back of my mind. Come to think of it, it was also in the vicinity of the Kale River, meaning it was also in danger. Even putting aside the possible threat of a hydra, there was no doubt that the awful poison was making its way downstream at this very moment. For Iria, Sela, and the brats’ sakes, I needed to warn them as soon as possible. Ideally, I’d want them to evacuate to safety with Seele and Suzume.
Also, Raz was supposed to be heading there right now as well. A lot had happened between us, sure, but I didn’t want him to die from such a poison. Besides, there was my agreement with Miroslav to uphold. The ongoing stampede was the only issue, but I’d noticed coming back from the ailing village that the defensive line was holding, so Ishka could probably endure for a few days without me. But the stampede would only grow worse as time went on, so if I was going to go to Merte, now was my only option. And so, I prepared to head out once again.
“Master!” The moment I was about to fly out to Merte, I heard a voice. Turning around on Claimh Soras’s saddle, I saw Miroslav breathlessly running toward me. She was usually so meticulous about her appearance, but her hair was a mess, her clothes all disheveled. It looked like she’d just sprung out of bed. Doubting she’d just come to say good morning, I hopped down from my wyvern, my expression serious.
“My...apologies. I didn’t mean...to keep you...” she wheezed, her shoulders heaving with every breath. I noticed she was carrying a large bag. Had her experimentation with the antidote been successful? When I asked her, she nodded emphatically.
“I’ve confirmed that the antidote is much more effective now and that it’s safe for human consumption. No harmful side effects were observed. It’s far from perfect, of course, but it should be a much better bet than the association’s.”
“You confirmed it? Already?” Not even a full day had passed since I’d given her the task. Based on what she just said, she’d probably only done the bare minimum confirmation, but still, she’d managed that in less than a day? To test the effectiveness of an antidote, she’d need a guinea pig already afflicted with poison. Normally such tests would start with rats or other small animals, then gradually work up to humans, but...
“I tested the antidote on myself, so there’s no doubt it works,” the red-haired mage said casually. In other words, the reason she was sleeping like the dead wasn’t because of the fatigue from her all-nighter. It was because she’d performed the experiment on herself.
I couldn’t help but furrow my brow at her. “No one said you had to go that far.”
“Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. I didn’t really have the time to start with rodents and work my way through like normal, did I?” she said with the hint of an impish grin.
I couldn’t help but notice the dark circles under her eyes. It was so pitiful I wanted to look away. Perhaps noticing the pity in my gaze, she shook her head with a smile as though to tell me not to worry.
“More importantly, master, I’ve also confirmed that your blood has a profound effect on the human body when consumed. I believe it even has the potential to conquer this deadly poison Luna informed me of. However, you need to be careful about who you administer it to. Your blood is far too powerful to offer to just anyone.”
“Far too powerful? What do you mean by that?”
“Think of it like a medicine so potent it can actually be poisonous if you’re not cautious. For instance, if you gave it to a patient with a weak body, it might actually prove fatal.”
“Hm, you don’t say.”
“There’s also a chance it could reinvigorate the disease within the patient. Dragon blood is often thought of as a panacea, but that doesn’t mean it’s an unconditional cure-all. There’s always a possibility it’ll cause more harm than good. Don’t forget that.”
“I won’t,” I said seriously, nodding at her warning. According to her, she could make some truly powerful, harmless curatives by mixing in my blood in just the right way, but it would take time and effort. Most likely, we wouldn’t make it in time to save everyone. So Miroslav had experimented on herself to test the medicine’s effectiveness. The bag she held out to me was the result of her risky efforts. I took it with gratitude, then mounted my wyvern once more.
“Please take care, master. I’ll be awaiting your safe return,” she said, bowing deeply.
In response, I gave her an additional order. “You take care of yourself too. Don’t experiment on yourself like that again. Understand?”
“Oh...yes, I promise, m-master!” Seemingly understanding my feelings, she smiled radiantly. She’d spoken so hurriedly, she’d even bit her tongue on the last word.
In order to escape that gaze of hers, I commanded Claimh Soras to take flight.
At that time, the two major issues in my mind were the monster stampede and the deadly poison. The reason Onigashima wasn’t included in that list was that I’d assumed it would take two months at the very least for those on the island to learn of Jijinbou’s death and for the Mitsurugi family to investigate and dispatch a replacement. Knowing the current head of the Mitsurugis’ personality, I didn’t think he would get seriously involved in an issue unrelated to the defense of the island, even if it was at the empire’s request.
For that reason, it never even crossed my mind that he might dispatch new personnel the very day of Jijinbou’s death. And I certainly hadn’t counted on those chivalrous individuals to run headlong into the monster stampede in order to save the populace almost immediately upon arriving at the royal capital.