As soon as they arrived at the military camp, Frennila headed to a barracks located on the outskirts, a place where experiments were being conducted, centered around the staff-wielding shamans.
Svioha, a woman I personally didn’t like, but I had to admit she was competent.
The moment we returned to the unit, we received a report on the state of the infected.
It wasn’t a plague.
It was more like a curse, as if someone with malicious intent had deliberately unleashed it upon this land.
And the mastermind was most likely the same person behind the recent attack.
Pulling back the tent flap, I stepped inside.
The bodies of the infected, piled up on both sides of the walls, were barely covered by a single sheet.
It was a horrific scene, but the two women at the center of it all were unfazed, engrossed in a discussion about a cure.
“This is more surprising than I thought.”
“…I’m confused too.”
“About what?”
“You startled me!”
Frennila, who had slipped between the two, noticed a clear white liquid placed on the table.
“What’s so surprising about this?”
“…It’s fine if you come in, but could you at least make some noise? It’s a bit unnerving sometimes.”
“Got it. So, what is this?”
As Frennila pressed for an explanation, Svioha sighed and shook her head, then pulled out a dagger and began evenly coating the blade with the liquid.
What is she planning?
Svioha, holding the dagger, headed toward a metal cage in the corner of the barracks, grabbed one of the infected, and plunged the dagger deep into his thigh.
“Grrr! Ah, ah, ahhh!”
“…This is.”
The infected reacted in a surprising way.
Until now, the infected had only let out emotionless, grating screams, even in their final moments.
But the infected who was stabbed by the dagger let out a scream filled with pain, like that of a normal person.
“…It hurts, it hurts so much.”
Thud.
Then he collapsed, motionless.
He was probably dead.
Rii approached the body and offered a prayer for the deceased, while Svioha performed a funeral rite.
Faced with this unexpected scene, Frennila was at a loss for words.
“It’s not a cure. More like salvation from a nightmare. It’s complete.”
Based on Svioha’s hypothesis, and with the help of the saintess, they discovered that what had spread in the north wasn’t just a simple plague.
It was something dreadful, a mix of dark magic and voodoo, like a curse.
Svioha named it “Nightmare.”
“There are two issues, though. One is that the medicine needs to be injected evenly into the blood vessels and flesh. And as you just saw, those who have been infected for a long time have already lost their strength and stamina, and even if they regain consciousness briefly, survival seems unlikely.”
Frennila’s gaze returned to the person who had just collapsed.
“…They’d rather die as children of Saka than remain monsters even in death.”
It’s unfortunate, but there’s no other choice.
We never expected that developing a cure would restore all the infected to their original state.
Smashing their heads and destroying their hearts—even though we’ve grown accustomed to it, it’s still difficult to do such things to those who were once our kin.
Now, there’s no need for that.
That alone is a significant achievement.
Just one stab, anywhere in the body, is enough.
It will free our kin who are wandering, tormented by the nightmare of reality.
“Can we mass-produce the cure?”
“There’s no problem with the materials. We just need enough time.”
“Start production. As much as possible, and as quickly as possible.”
We need to act fast to ensure that another attack like the last one doesn’t happen.
The stock of golden jasmine petals is running low, so their offensive will likely intensify soon.
We need to end this before then.
Frennila suddenly recalled the black-masked puppets she had seen during the first attack.
Her fists clenched in anger, nails digging into her palms until blood dripped down.
Ah, it’s going to be busy for a while.
As Svioha muttered to herself, Frennila left the barracks.
“….”
Svioha watched her leave the lab with a sidelong glance.
Svioha had only reported the necessary parts.
The part she and Rii had earlier called “surprising” wasn’t about the completion of the cure.
After all, if you’re unfamiliar with the field of magic, you wouldn’t understand how astonishing this is.
From previous experiments, they had confirmed that healing magic and purification magic could manifest sequentially in one body, but they never thought the two energies could mix without conflict.
So they had devised a method to create separate medicines for healing and purification and inject them separately.
“Ouch!”
Rii, exhausted from working through the night, tripped and fell.
In a chain reaction, she grabbed the table, causing the equipment to spill and the medicines containing healing and purification magic to mix chaotically.
This is a big accident, Svioha sighed and tried to dispose of the medicines through her subordinates, but the two liquids mixed together as if they had originally been one.
Rii and Svioha could only stare at this shocking scene with their mouths agape.
“Let’s test it right away.”
There were no side effects, like losing the original efficacy.
“…It feels like all the common sense I had coming to the north has been shattered.”
“I know, right.”
Even though the healing magic contained only the purest part of the energy and the purification magic only the cleanest part of the divine power, energies that are fundamentally different should repel each other.
“…I’d like to research this further, but there are priorities.”
“Yeah, I agree.”
That was the story before Frennila burst into the lab.
Curiosity can be satisfied later.
The order from the lord is to solve the immediate problem first.
Hurrying to bring the materials into the warehouse, the two began producing the cure to bring an end to the northern incident.
*
“Ugh, where am I?”
The ceiling is unfamiliar, yet not entirely so.
They say that before death, the most familiar places come to mind first. Is that what this is?
Sitting up and looking to the side, I see the face of an old friend.
“Hey, you’re awake! Are you hurt anywhere?”
The friend embracing me, Frennila.
Her warmth reaches me.
What’s this?
Nila’s hugs are never this week.
Am I really dead?
I’m confused.
“What, I’m not dead? I’m alive?”
“Dead? Of course not. You’re perfectly fine. …You did really well. Thank you for protecting the prince. And thank you for not dying, for staying alive.”
I’m at a loss for how to respond to my friend’s sincere expression of emotion.
I just did what I had to do.
But hearing her say “thank you” and “good job” warms my heart, and I quietly savor the feeling.
“Did anything happen?”
It was just a formal greeting, asking if everything was okay, but Werhe’s expression subtly changed.
Anything happened?
What counts as “anything”?
Depending on the criteria, the judgment might differ, but there’s one thing I can say for sure.
No matter how much it was for survival, spending the night naked in the arms of a friend’s lover, or feeling inexplicably flustered by his every action—these are acts that betray a friend’s trust, no matter the circumstances.
Should I be honest?
Werhe’s internal struggle deepened.
“….”
Noticing her friend’s lack of response, Frennila sensed something was off and was about to ask when—
“Pardon me.”
Argin, the chief of the Shield Tribe, who visited the medical tent whenever he had time to check on his grandson’s condition.
“Chief Argin.”
“Rest, child.”
Thanks to Frennila’s attention shifting to him, Werhe gained some time to think and let out a sigh of relief.
“Has the boy regained consciousness?”
Argin, who had been observing his grandson’s condition, approached Frennila and asked.
“…Not yet.”
“Is that so? Don’t worry too much. He’s regained a lot of his strength and will likely wake up soon.”
Though he spoke calmly, his expression showed he was deeply concerned.
Even though they were strangers, his only remaining blood relative had been in danger.
Yet, perhaps due to his experience, Argin quickly composed himself.
The uncomfortable silence that followed made Werhe feel out of place between the two.
It seemed the Shield Tribe had recently joined the alliance.
But after the recent events, Frennila held a negative view of the Shield Tribe.
Should I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep?
But we’ve already made eye contact.
As she fretted internally, Argin’s gaze turned to her.
What should I say?
To her surprise, Argin bowed his head and apologized first.
“Young lady of the Axe Tribe, I’m sorry for what happened before. Can you forgive this old man for being blinded by the past and making a wrong judgment?”
Frennila was watching, and with him being so humble, she really had nothing to say.
Whether it was the right choice or not, the series of events were understandable from everyone’s perspective.
Her gaze shifted to the prince, who still hadn’t regained consciousness.
The image of the prince, wielding a shield for the first time yet handling it skillfully during the battle with the monster, came to mind.
The shield—perhaps it’s in the blood.
“Please, raise your head. I was angry at the time, but it wasn’t a situation I couldn’t understand. …Besides, without the prince, we wouldn’t have made it.”
Let’s just leave it at that.
Of course, even though she decided to let it go, the discomfort still lingered, but time would eventually heal it.
“Thank you.”
After that, silence fell again, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable as before.
And so, united under the name of Saka for the first time in decades, they all waited with the same hope for the central figure of this place to wake up.
“…Haa, where is this?”
It didn’t take long for the prince to open his eyes.
“Prince!”
As he regained consciousness, Frennila quickly moved closer but then stopped.
Since realizing that he felt fear toward her, she had no choice but to be cautious with every action.
She didn’t want to cause him any more pain.
Standing at a distance, hesitating, Argin stepped forward in her place.
“You’re awake?”
“…Who are you?”
“Well, even so, hearing ‘who are you’ makes me feel a bit bitter.”
Kyukyuk!
Next to Argin, a turtle caught his attention.
Kyukyukyuk!
Wait, not one turtle, but two?
The familiar turtle from the cave was clinging to the shell of a larger turtle, staring at him.
That means—
[It’s nice to meet you, grandson. I’m your grandfather.]