The sixth day after Miryeong and Raymond left for the capital.
“Your recovery is remarkable...”
The medical officer unwrapped the bandages around Bido’s chest and examined the wound,
then murmured in a voice close to admiration.
Only a few days ago, even moving had been too much for her body.
And yet now, as long as she was careful of the red marks left behind,
the wound had visibly settled.
Leaning against the wall, Maho said bluntly,
“Of course. She’s got a Fragment of the Moon.”
Before the medical officer could even lift his head,
Maho added,
“It’s different from an ordinary person carrying one. A Moonblood can take in that energy far more completely.”
The medical officer looked back and forth between Maho and Bido, his face saying he had no idea what that meant,
but he did not ask.
If he started questioning every incomprehensible thing in this room,
there would be no end to it.
He, too, had learned that much by now.
Bido silently clenched and unclenched her fist.
It was definitely different.
The wound had not vanished all at once.
When she breathed in deeply, there was still a dull ache inside,
and if she put strength into the wrong place, her chest throbbed at once.
After wrapping a fresh bandage around her one last time, the medical officer said,
“I don’t think we need to bind it so tightly anymore.”
“However, you still haven’t fully recovered.”
“Thank you.”
Once the treatment was finished, Bido slowly raised herself up.
Compared to six days ago, her body felt astonishingly light.
Her body still remembered the injury, but it no longer rejected movement itself.
Watching her, Maho asked in a low voice,
“What about Roan?”
Bido closed her eyes for a moment and searched within.
The cold fragment was still clearly pointing in one direction.
But the sensation was not steady.
It seemed to grow farther away, then came close again,
seemed to blur, then at some point returned as a much heavier pressure.
“He keeps getting farther and then closer again.”
Bido spoke slowly.
“Separate from the distance... his energy keeps getting stronger.”
Maho let out a short sigh.
“Looks like he’s made up his mind.”
He glanced out the window and muttered,
“He must be continuing to steal fragments.”
Bido quietly bit the inside of her lip.
Even at this very moment, Roan was likely taking someone’s life.
The energy reaching her through the cold fragment
was not something that could be described merely as growing stronger.
It was becoming deeper,
denser.
Like darkness swelling in size as it devoured someone.
And even knowing that, there was nothing she could do right now.
Raen, who had been sitting beside Bido, silently reached out and held Bido’s hand tightly.
“Bido.”
Bido turned her head to look at Raen.
“Are you... feeling much better now?”
Relief and worry were mixed together in her eyes.
After losing her fragment, Raen could no longer sense Roan,
but instead, she had begun watching Bido’s condition more often than before.
Bido smiled faintly.
“Yes, Raen.”
She looked down at her own hand for a moment, then added,
“I think I can swing a sword again now.”
Hearing that, the medical officer fell silent for a moment.
Then he gave a small cough and, maintaining as much physicianly composure as he could, said,
“...Even so, please do not overexert yourself.”
Maho chuckled.
“She’ll try it anyway, even if you stop her.”
“Maho.”
When Raen called his name in displeasure,
Maho merely shrugged.
It was then.
The door opened,
and Ed came in carrying a tray of food.
“Now, let’s eat.”
That brief sentence strangely changed the air in the room.
The tension and unease that had weighed on this room for days remained,
but at least in this moment, the fact that they were all alive in the same place felt more distinct.
Bido looked for a moment at Raen, who still had not let go of her hand, then quietly steadied her breath.
Her body was recovering.
But as time passed, what was approaching was only becoming clearer.
After the meal ended,
a brief silence settled over the room.
In that stillness, Bido slowly walked toward Tiamar’s sword.
Only a few days ago, merely approaching the sword had made her wound throb,
but now it was different.
Even when she reached out, gripped the hilt, and lifted it, the weight no longer turned immediately into pain.
It was still heavy.
But her body no longer wavered because it could not bear that weight.
Bido quietly steadied her breath.
Even while she had been leaning against the bed recovering, she had not let go of the sensation of handling power for even a moment.
How to move Idrin, how to trace the grain dwelling within the sword,
what changed inside her body, and how, when the Moonblood opened.
Even the time when she could not move had not been spent in vain.
Holding the sword upright, Bido let Idrin flow very slowly.
The process was different from before.
If before it had felt as though she were forcing each part to rise one by one,
now it was far simpler and faster.
The power did not leak away, nor did it collide uselessly with anything.
Only as much as was needed seeped into the exact places it had to go.
Before long, a crescent moon mark quietly appeared on Bido’s forehead, shining blue.
The sword gave a low hum.
Wooooong—
It was less a sound than a ripple.
And yet everyone in the room could feel it.
As the flow that began from the sword brushed through the room in an extremely thin current,
the medical officer involuntarily gasped and took a step back.
Bido’s appearance had not changed greatly.
Red scales did not rise over her as they once had.
Her eyes did not turn red.
She simply stood there with a blue crescent moon on her forehead,
so still it was almost excessive.
That made her feel even stranger.
Even the air in the room seemed to flow in a different grain only around Bido.
As everyone silently watched her,
the first to speak was Maho.
“You’ve completely realized it.”
He smiled, showing his teeth slightly.
It was a smile mingled with surprise and interest.
Soon, Maho pushed himself away from the wall and slowly walked toward Bido.
“Now, Bido.”
He stopped in front of her.
“Do you remember?”
Maho tapped his own chest.
“Stab me again.”
The medical officer’s mouth fell open, then soon shut again.
By this point, he looked too exhausted to be surprised anymore.
He sighed, closed his eyes and opened them again,
then stepped back as if he had decided not to try understanding any further.
Bido immediately understood Maho’s meaning.
She did not ask unnecessary questions.
Instead, she concentrated more deeply.
The sword in her hand hummed once again.
The quiet resonance became even clearer than before.
Bido very slowly raised the tip of the sword.
Then, without hesitation, she thrust it toward Maho’s chest.
Sssuk—
It still was not the sensation of tearing flesh.
Rather than piercing through something,
it felt closer to slipping through a single membrane.
The sword tip entered toward a place deeper than the body.
At that moment,
Bido clearly felt it.
Powerful vitality.
And deeper within it, the hot energy of a dragon flickering like flame.
Before, it had been a flow that simply overwhelmed her.
It had been too vast and too hot,
a power she could only brush past rather than seal.
But this time was different.
Through the tip of the sword, Bido seized the flow she had touched.
And sealed it.
“Ugh...!”
A short groan burst from Maho’s mouth.
When Bido drew the sword out,
unlike before, red blood flowed down from that spot.
“As expected...”
Maho bared his teeth in a pained smile.
One knee touched the floor.
For a very brief moment, his breathing grew rough.
Startled, Raen immediately ran over.
“Maho!”
She grabbed his shoulder and asked urgently,
“Are you all right?”
Bido took a short breath.
The sensation of the flow she had just sealed still remained at her fingertips.
She had not been swept away by a massive current like before.
She had definitely touched it, and she had closed it.
Between rough breaths, Maho said in a low voice,
“Kh... now... release it...”
At those words, Bido froze for a moment, unable to move right away.
Then she understood.
Before, Maho had torn apart that small seal on his own.
But now it was different.
Bido quickly brought the sword tip back to Maho’s chest.
And moved her consciousness for one very brief instant.
Fwoosh.
The place where blood had been flowing was instantly covered in flame.
The sealed flow opened once more, and the dragon energy inside Maho revived in the form of fire.
Hot heat spread through the room, then soon subsided.
“Hoo...”
Maho let out a long breath.
He wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up again.
When he lightly brushed away the flames remaining on his chest, they scattered and disappeared.
“Not bad.”
Maho looked straight at Bido.
This time, there was no playfulness in his eyes, only stark clarity.
“What you just did wasn’t ordinary.”
He continued in a low voice.
“The old you never could have done that.”
Bido lowered the sword a little with a hand beaded in cold sweat.
It felt as though the pain Maho had felt still lingered at her fingertips.
Holding Bido’s gaze, Maho said,
“The dragon’s soul.”
The words fell heavily in the room.
“You already felt it, didn’t you? What you sealed wasn’t just a flow of vitality.”
He pointed to his own chest with his fingertips.
“It was the deeper grain inside.”
Bido could not answer.
Instead, she recalled the hot energy she had touched through the sword tip moments ago.
Something that existed within the body, yet was different from the body.
Something that had felt like a living, moving will.
The dragon’s soul.
Maho laughed briefly.
“Well done.”
This time, there was neither mockery nor testing in those words.
“It wasn’t just luck. What you’ve been doing all this time—that has accumulated.”
He quietly looked at Bido for a while, then slowly turned around.
And as if nothing had happened, he returned to his original place and dropped down to sit.
The room fell silent again.
But that silence was different from before.
No one said it aloud,
but everyone knew what had just changed here.
Bido looked down at the sword.
The blue crescent moon was still floating quietly above her forehead,
and Tiamar’s sword existed in her hand with a weight entirely different from before.
Now she knew.
What she could seal was not merely the power visible on the surface.
She could reach even what flowed deeper than that.