Leaving those words behind, the man in the bird-beaked helmet slowly looked up at the sky.
Shaaaaa—
He caught the pouring rainwater in his mouth and drank it down.
Before the streams of water could run beneath his helmet and reach the tip of his chin—
Rrrip. Rrrrip.
He lowered his head again and crouched over the corpse.
The mouth beneath the lifted guard moved without pause, savagely chewing and swallowing chunks of flesh.
As if it were nothing more than an ordinary meal to fill his hunger.
‘…What the hell is that?’
Eating the corpse of an enemy he had killed.
It was a scene that couldn’t be explained by any common sense I possessed.
Whether it was culture, religion, or instinct, none of it made sense.
Especially because the monster sprawled on the ground, despite its distorted shape,
still had parts that somehow resembled a human, and he was clearly avoiding those parts.
But even so, it was hard to call what he was doing normal.
This isn’t the time.
“Baldik!”
Squelch, squelch.
Cutting through the mud, I ran past the monster’s corpse toward Baldik, who had collapsed some distance away.
He lay there clutching his abdomen, without so much as the sound of breathing.
For an instant, my blood ran cold to the top of my head.
Am I too late…?
But then,
Tap, tap.
When the falling rain touched the corners of his eyes, his eyelids trembled faintly.
He was alive.
Without a doubt, he was still breathing.
“H-hurry…!”
With trembling hands, I fumbled through my pouch.
My breath caught at a familiar sensation.
A hard bottle caught on my fingertips.
A recovery potion… It was the one Malay had given me when she left.
Please, let this keep him alive.
Pop.
I pulled the stopper and was about to pry open Baldik’s mouth and pour in the medicine.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“…!”
He stopped me.
It wasn’t a mutter to himself.
He was definitely speaking to me.
In that instant, my whole body stiffened.
It was true he had helped us… but there was no guarantee he was an ally.
And now that guy was stopping me from healing him?
Damn it, I knew he was suspicious from the start.
Should I just carry Baldik and run, even now?
Just as warning bells started ringing in my head,
“That guy’s abdomen looks like it was forcibly stopped from bleeding.”
“…What?”
“If he drinks that in that state, the blood will pool inside.”
My hand stopped.
He was still kneeling beside the monster’s corpse, speaking without even lifting his head.
His behavior was suspicious beyond words, but strangely enough, his words were persuasive.
“T-then what should I do?”
“You’ll have to reopen the wound with a blade. Make a hole so the blood can drain out.”
A simple and extreme method.
Perhaps that was why it actually felt more trustworthy.
I picked up the dagger Baldik had been using and brought it to his abdomen.
The wound was so deep it was hard to believe he was still alive.
And yet, pale-red flesh had already covered the area.
‘So it really was forcibly sealed with hemostasis.’
Maybe it was thanks to that he had endured until now, even in this state.
I carefully placed the dagger against him.
Baldik’s blood-soaked abdomen looked, at a glance, so bad that it seemed a miracle he was still breathing.
But… there was less bleeding than I expected.
The open wound was deep, but it seemed his internal organs hadn’t been damaged.
It appeared that the flesh near his side had simply been torn away, causing heavy blood loss.
‘Still, it’s too early to relax.’
If I poured the potion into him in this state, the internal bleeding could start again, or the pain could hit him before the recovery did.
Swallowing a sigh, I adjusted my grip on the dagger.
“…Sorry, Baldik.”
After taking a deep breath, I placed the blade over the wound.
And then, just like that—
Thuk.
Cold steel split the flesh open again, reopening the gaping wound.
The sealed portion tore apart, and dark-red blood flowed out like rain.
Swoosh.
I immediately bent down, opened Baldik’s mouth, and poured in the recovery potion in my hand.
Gulp. Gulp.
The viscous medicine flowed into his mouth.
Once, then twice, his throat moved unconsciously.
“Ha… Good. Now… now you have to hold on….”
Only after emptying the potion did I let go.
My palms and wrists were covered in blood, but thankfully, there were no signs of the bleeding worsening again.
I panted for breath and lowered my head.
A short while later,
Baldik’s lips trembled faintly, and his thin breathing gradually began to settle into a steady rhythm.
He hadn’t regained consciousness completely yet, but it was definitely a sign of recovery.
‘He survived.’
Only then was I able to loosen my tension a little.
After letting out a long breath, I immediately raised my head and looked around.
“…Sileon.”
Changing direction, I staggered toward Sileon.
His body, collapsed in the mud, was still limp.
I knelt and checked his condition.
Fortunately, the bleeding wasn’t severe.
He had been struck by the tentacle, but there were no signs of him being pierced through or cut.
The problem was that I had no potions left.
I bit my lip hard.
The cold rain ran down my cheeks, and my fingertips continued to tremble.
‘What do I do…?’
At that moment, I heard the clatter of metal from behind me.
I turned my head reflexively.
There, the man was still standing.
The hands that had been tearing at flesh just moments ago had stopped, but he still hadn’t raised his head.
As if he were watching everything, deliberately remaining still.
Even as fatigue washed over me, I kept my guard up against him to the end.
He still seemed to be looking at me from beyond his helmet.
Silently, motionlessly.
As I examined Sileon’s injuries, I began calculating a way to escape in my head.
Then, at last, he raised his head slightly.
“I don’t like those eyes.”
His tone was still light.
But the nuance contained within it was anything but.
“It’s rude to glare at someone like that. What, are you afraid I’m going to hurt you or something?”
‘You look like you would.’
The words rose to my throat, but I kept my mouth shut.
The man let out an exaggerated sigh, then spoke again.
“Good grief. I shouldn’t have agreed. Now I’ve gotten myself tangled up in something annoying. And that weird bastard ran away, too.”
Letting the end of his words trail off in displeasure, he glanced down at the monster’s corpse.
The way he grumbled while flicking the blood from his hands had something oddly human about it, but that only made him more unsettling.
Without a word, I supported Sileon’s shoulder and helped him up.
Even while feeling his gaze on me, I deliberately avoided looking his way as I moved.
The feeling that I shouldn’t meet his eyes kept prickling at the nape of my neck.
“Hey, Liv.”
Just as I was about to move Sileon under the eaves, he called my name.
I had been about to ignore him and keep going, but his next words stopped me.
“No need to be so wary. Aileen sent me.”
“…Excuse me?”
A familiar name.
But hearing that name come from such an unfamiliar mouth made my mind go blank for a moment.
“Ah, right. It’s late, but I should introduce myself. I’m Chad. Chad Cavallini.”
Chad Cavallini.
…Sir Chad?
I remembered what Aileen had told me.
That when she was young, there had been someone who protected her.
A single knight who had stayed by her side during hard times.
And that person was the man standing before me now?
“You’re Sir Chad?”
“Mm, I don’t really like that title. Well, it’s not wrong.”
I couldn’t see his expression clearly, but there was a strange weariness mixed into his voice.
I only knew two knights, so why did both of them hate being called “Sir”?
“…Aileen sent you?”
It came out of nowhere.
It was surprising enough that he had been with her, but she had sent him to us?
Why?
“Yeah. I was originally going to join you around Mondark, but things got a bit tangled on the way. In the meantime, you all left. So I asked around here and there, and in the end I only found you after going all the way to Beldor.”
“Then… you were with Malay—”
“Ugh, that damned demon hag.”
Chad flinched before the word “Malay” had even finished.
It was the kind of reaction that made it seem like he had PTSD.
“Ugh, don’t even bring up that hag. She kept feeding me all sorts of things, saying she wanted to experiment on me. Urgh… Just thinking about it turns my stomach.”
He bent over and retched in earnest.
What on earth did that woman do this time?
“…Then why did you come here?”
“I originally followed along to protect Aileen. But when I actually got there, she was already somewhere safe, see? So I was getting a little bored when Aileen told me to go help you lot instead.”
It was a reason so simple, and so absurd, that I was at a loss.
‘He came all this way for a reason like that?’
“No… How did you catch up to us so quickly? It should have been quite a distance.”
As I said, we had gone through a lot on the way and had been delayed, but it wasn’t as if we had been moving that leisurely either.
“Well, I ran.”
“What?”
“For a distance like this, if you run without resting, you can make it in a week, can’t you?”
He shrugged as if he were completely serious.
I was so dumbfounded I couldn’t continue speaking.
…This man wasn’t normal either.
In the first place, what kind of knight didn’t even have a horse?
I knew he was an ally now, but his bizarre behavior and the blood smeared thickly around his mouth were more than enough to make me hesitate to approach him.
Perhaps noticing that I was still on guard, he waved his hand dismissively and spoke as if explaining himself.
“Uh, didn’t you hear? This is… hmm, something like the price of a relic. You know what relics are, right?”
“…I do.”
I knew what relics were.
And I knew who he was, and why he had done that.
The man-eating knight, Chad.
It was a story Malay had told me herself.
…But knowing that didn’t mean I could suddenly become friendly with him.
If anything, it might have been easier if I hadn’t known.
“…For now, let’s talk later. My companions are in bad shape.”
At my words, he shrugged and nodded.
“Sure. That’s too bad. Ah, right.”
As if something had occurred to him, he lightly clapped his hands.
“Those two people are your companions too, right?”
“Two people… Ah.”
Ranson and that servant.
“What about them?”
“I was wandering around nearby, you see? One of them told me to try heading this way.”
“…I see.”
…I thought they had simply run away, but it seemed they had at least the bare minimum of conscience.
With Chad’s help, I moved Baldik and Sileon to the inn.
The outer wall had collapsed and rainwater was seeping in, but this was still the only place in the village where we could rest.
Inside the inn, several survivors had already gathered.
Wrapped in blankets, leaning on one another’s warmth as they shivered, they looked like refugees who had just passed through a war.
I didn’t see anyone resembling the village chief.
It seemed he had already lost his life during the fight.
Though it had hardly been a fight—more like a massacre.
And in one corner, sitting as if leaning against the wall, was a familiar voice.
“Y-you’re alive.”
It was Ranson.
Beside him lay the servant, still unconscious.
I nodded and first carefully laid Baldik and Sileon on the floor.
I roughly wiped the floor with a wet cloak, then dragged over the blankets and pillows scattered around to prop them up.
Ranson, who had been nearby, approached.
“Here, use this.”
What he held out was a bundle of bandages packed with crushed medicinal herbs.
Seeing as they gave off a faint scent, they weren’t just simple cloth but medicinal materials effective for pain relief or suppressing inflammation.
“I used to gather herbs a little in the past. I’ll help you.”
I nodded silently.
With surprisingly steady hands, Ranson pressed around Sileon’s wounds and touched his joints as if checking where something might be broken.
“Fortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any serious problem with his bones. It must be fatigue and shock.”
He wiped the sweat from Sileon’s forehead, then carefully cleaned his fingertips and the area around his mouth with a damp cloth.
There was an astonishing amount of sincerity and care in his touch.
“You’re really skilled at this.”
When I murmured that, Ranson smiled briefly and said,
“To survive, you have to know how.”
Only then did I look back at the servant lying beside him.
He was unconscious, but his breathing was steady, and his complexion wasn’t bad.
There were no external injuries anywhere on his body.
“How is he?”
Ranson shook his head with a face full of exhaustion.
“He still hasn’t regained consciousness.”
I sighed and lowered my head.
The potions were all used up already, and there were no more resources left to use.
Sileon was breathing evenly, but his exhaustion was plain on his face.
Baldik was quiet, as if he had fainted again.
The bleeding had stopped, but I still couldn’t relax.
“…Still, everyone is alive.”
“If that man hadn’t appeared, far more people would have been injured.”
“…That man?”
When Ranson asked back, I turned my head and quietly pointed at Chad.
He was sitting with his back against the inn wall.
Still without taking off his helmet, he had a two-handed sword resting across his knees and was using one hand to flick rainwater from his soaked quilted armor.
“Ah, that man! I saw him passing by earlier.”
Judging by Ranson’s reaction, it seemed he had indeed pointed him in this direction.
“He’s the one who took down the monster.”
Ranson slowly nodded.
“…That really is fortunate.”
Without thinking, I looked toward Chad again.
Perhaps sensing my gaze as well, he turned his head slightly and met my eyes through his helmet.
The eyes inside the helmet still seemed playful and relaxed.
But beyond them lurked a darkness that couldn’t be easily guessed at.
‘…He really is impossible to understand.’