Then came a wet, tearing sound.

“Blair, the antidote!”

At Kalintz’s urgent voice, Blair opened her eyes. He had jammed the broken sword into the roof of the beast’s mouth and was barely holding it open.

“Now! Throw it in!”

Blair didn’t hesitate. She reached into the pouch tied at his waist and pulled out Ariela’s antidote.

The cork came out with a clean pop. Blair threw the entire vial into the beast’s throat.

“Done!”

Kalintz yanked his hand free from the creature’s mouth and pulled Blair away from it.

Shriiiiiiii—!

The beast writhed in agony after swallowing the antidote. A moment later, black smoke began pouring from its mouth.

It convulsed with strange, heaving breaths for a time, then let out one great cry toward the sky and collapsed with a heavy thud.

Slowly, the black hide and coarse fur that had covered the creature’s body evaporated like steam.

What remained was nothing more than an ordinary boar.

“Is it…… over?”

Blair stared at the scene, unable to quite believe her own eyes, and murmured blankly.

“Seems like it.”

A thoroughly hoarse voice came from above her head.

Blair slowly looked up. Kalintz’s face, streaked with blood, came into view.

“Look at your face.”

Blair wiped the sticky blood from his cheek as she spoke.

“You’re not exactly in a position to talk.”

Kalintz answered quietly, his hand moving gently over Blair’s face, smeared with dust and dried tears.

“……We’re both a complete mess.”

“We are. Every time we set foot in a hunting ground, it turns into a disaster.”

“I’m never going anywhere near a hunting ground again.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Blair pursed her lips at that, then shifted slightly to check his condition.

“Let me look at that wound. You were bleeding from your abdomen earlier……”

“Wait.”

But Kalintz didn’t move. Instead, the arms holding her tightened, and he whispered,

“Just…… let me stay like this for a moment.”

His voice, soft in a way she hadn’t heard in a long time, hit Blair somewhere deep in her chest.

How long they stayed like that, she couldn’t say.

Then Blair felt his weight shift slightly and opened her mouth.

“Your Highness.”

No answer came.

“……Kalintz?”

She called his name with a creeping sense of dread, but still no answer came.

❀❀❀

“What on earth is—!”

A moment ago, Ernst had stared at the red smoke blooming in a corner of the sky amid a tremendous noise and murmured.

“That sounded exactly like a firecracker.”

Rashid said it with a grim face.

“That’s my experimental launch-type explosive!”

A woman called out behind them in a clear, ringing voice.

It was Ariela, who had joined their group by chance while they were tracking Blair.

“Ariela. Launch-type…… what?”

Ernst asked again, wondering if he had heard wrong.

“Explosive. I gave it to her since it wasn’t ideal for sending signals. As you can see, it puts out red smoke that’s easy to spot. It looks like she found His Highness Kalintz!”

Ariela added that she would need to reduce the amount of dargon powder and scribbled the adjusted formula on a piece of paper.

“You gave Her Highness an explosive…… one that hasn’t even been properly tested for safety?”

Ernst looked utterly exasperated as he demanded an explanation, but Ariela only shrugged and said nothing.

“That’s strange. I’m sure I told her to fire it toward the sky. Why is the smoke rising from so low?”

“You mean she fired it somewhere else by mistake? Her Highness isn’t the type to make that kind of error……”

Ernst couldn’t finish the sentence. If it wasn’t a mistake, the answer was obvious.

Whether she knew it was an explosive or not, if she had aimed it at something, that meant things had gone badly.

“We should hurry. It looks like it’s quite a distance away.”

Rashid said it with a rigid face, apparently thinking the same thing.

Ernst looked toward where the red smoke was rising. A nagging, unpleasant feeling kept clinging to him, and he shook his head sharply a couple of times before setting off.

❀❀❀

Blair plunged the blood-soaked cloth into the stream with trembling hands.

The murky red spreading through the clear water blurred her vision all over again.

Slap—

She struck her own cheek with one hand. Cold droplets of water scattered and splashed against her skin.

Get it together. There’s no time for this.

Blair swallowed the urge to cry, wrung out the cloth, and got to her feet. Her destination was only a few steps away, but her feet moved with urgency.

The undergrowth she had passed through earlier came into view. Blair pushed through it with anxious hands and ran to him.

He was still lying on the ground, unconscious.

“Kalintz.”

She called his name on the off chance, but no answer came.

She held her hand near his nose to check his breathing. Her fingertips trembled finely. Faint, but there was breath.

“Phew.”

She let out a breath of relief and carefully wiped the wound on his abdomen with the cloth she had cleaned in the stream. The bleeding had slowed considerably from before.

Pressing down hard with both hands the way Kalintz had told her to had apparently worked.

Don’t cry. He’ll be fine.

Fine, how. He can’t even open his eyes.

The mutant beast had barely fallen when Kalintz lost consciousness. When he had asked to stay like that for just a moment and then crumpled lifelessly to the ground, it had felt like every drop of blood in her body went cold.

Blair had pressed her shaking hands desperately against the wound in his abdomen, trying to stop the blood that kept welling up.

‘Ngh……’

‘Does it hurt?’

‘I’m fine…… press harder.’

Watching Kalintz bite his lip and struggle through the pain, Blair had wept without stopping as she worked to stanch the bleeding.

After a long while, the flow of blood had dropped by more than half.

‘……You’re doing well. As expected.’

‘What, what do I do now……‘

‘Now…… we wait.‘

‘For what?’

‘……Blair.’

He had slowly lifted his hand, still leaning against the tree. The hand that touched her cheek was cold.

‘I won’t leave you alone. So…… wait for me.‘

He had left her with those words and a faint smile, then lost consciousness again.

Since then, Kalintz had not woken for hours.

“How much longer do I have to wait. I have so much to tell you.”

Blair choked on a sudden sob and took his hand. She pressed her lips to the back of his pale hand, and a wave of fear and dread she could not contain came crashing over her.

“Just hold on a little longer, Kalintz. Just a little……”

Murmuring like a prayer, she looked up at the sky, thick with dark clouds.

Right. Just a little longer. The others must have seen the red smoke, so Ariela or Ernst’s group would come looking soon.

Just have to hold on until then.

Blair wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and got to her feet.

While she had the time, she needed to water the horse and let it rest properly. She took down the saddle, pulled the blanket from the horse’s back and draped it over Kalintz, then took the reins and headed to the stream.

While the horse drank, Blair filled a leather canteen with water. She splashed some on her own grimy face as well.

Scrubbing away the dried flakes of blood, her vision felt clearer.

……Hm?

Something glinted in the stream.

“Water-star?”

Blair reached toward the leaves swaying in the clear current.

To find this here of all places.

It was a water plant she had sometimes seen at Lake Rafen. The tips of its leaves were tinged a pale yellow, looking so much like stars floating on the water that she had given it that name on her own.

Allen had always told her the proper botanical name whenever she called it that, but she couldn’t remember it now.

One thing she remembered clearly, though. The plant could be used as an herbal remedy.

Blair pulled up a handful of the slippery water plant. She shook off the water roughly, picked up a few fist-sized stones, and hurried to stuff everything into the saddlebag.

“Let’s go.”

She gave the horse’s mane a quick stroke, took the reins, and hurried back to Kalintz.

But the hopeful look on her face crumbled the moment she returned.

“Good heavens, what a fever—!”

Kalintz’s body was burning. He seemed to be shivering with chills on top of the fever, trembling finely and letting out pained sounds one after another.

The alarming state of him made Blair’s blood run cold.

“Just wait, wait a moment!”

She quickly pulled Ariela’s dagger from her hip and began tearing strips from her cloak.

Riiip—

Her hands kept losing their grip and she nearly dropped the dagger several times, but she managed to tear off a fairly straight strip.