Ep 14. Pay Your Respects. (9)
“…Lord? Lord Serenis? Hello?”
“Although we ’t bury them, we’ll always remember their sacrifi our hearts. May they fiernal pea…”
“…Father, that’s not funny.”
Despite his evident joking, Bruton’s hand was h over the unscious boy’s chest, even in this moment. The elder dragon was eling copious amounts of mana into the dragonlord, rest what he could. But…
‘The reserve’s been severely damaged. The spell draiheir mana well over the reserve’s limits…’
Mana was an intangible form of energy scattered throughout the world. One could find it in the smallest of ponds, the rgest of trees, even in the air and soil. And living beings were no exception.
Though a myriad of methods were out there, the most ventional way to gain mana was simply through breathing and ing food. The restored mana is then safely tained within the mana reserve within one’s heart, with any excess being cycled out through breathing.
However, Serenis’ body was failing at the ‘taining’ part. Despite Bruton’s efforts to refill the dragonlord’s empty reserves, what mana was eled in tio leak out untrolbly; it was no different than attempting to fill a shattered pot. Symptoms of maion were often temporary, but that was not the case when the individual’s reserve ractically destroyed like this.
For now, Bruton was able to dey the repercussions. But as soon as he stopped the elling, Serenis’ reserve would wither pletely; never again would the dragonlord be able to use any form of magic. Worse, there was no telling what damage it would bring to the physical body without any mana cirg it whatsoever.
‘But we don’t have ahat could treat this here. We…hm?’
From the ers of his eyes, Bruton could notice Raizel rising up to her feet. A horrifying screeg noise echoed out of her arm.
The bohat she’d ripped out of her arm were growing back from within. Ilias couldn’t help but frown at the sight.
“Ugh…Raizel, what are you…you grow your own bones?”
“Of course I .”
“What do you mean ‘of course’?! Bones aren’t kelp, they don’t just grow back like that!”
“Are you stupid?”
“What?”
“What’s my affinity?”
“?...Steel.”
“What’s my bone made of?”
“Steel…oh.”
Ilias betedly realized what Raizel was doing. Her bone wasn’t ‘growing’ per say; the steel dragon was simply making new ohrough her own affinity’s magic.
“Wait…if you could grow your bones back like that, why didn’t you just do that when I broke your wrist? Now that I think about it, couldn’t you have just made the metal with magistead of ripping your bones out?”
Raizel made a disgusted expression as she shook her arm in front of Ilias, answering through gritted teeth.
“First of all, fixing myself this way hurts like a bitch.”
“…Right. Sorry.”
“Sed of all, you know how slow my spells are. I didn’t have time to lounge around like you.”
“…Sorry.”
By the virtue of her affinity, bined with her ck of relianagic, Raizel’s spell speed was abysmally slow pared to the average; she simply didn’t have the luxury of time in the case with saving Serenis.
After making sure that her arm was funing again, Raizel temporarily closed the wound she’d ripped open with heaps of metal. It wasly areatment, but it’d do for now; there were more pressing matters at hand.
The steel dragon sed the huge, circur chamber they’d entered.
The path they’d e through was now pletely blocked with heaps of the colpsed ice. She could see several other paths leading to this very chamber, though she figured none of them were exits, but instead simir paths ridden with traps and ill i. The only ‘exit’ was likely supposed to be through the ceiling.
ing through the ceiling was light – unmistakable sunlight. While it was far too high to reach without flying, it would definitely lead them back outside.
She then lowered her gaze, fog in on the object before her.
A blue orb was levitating at her chest level at the tre of the room. It tinuously emitted a chilling aura, though it did little to bother the metal dragon. It was undoubtedly the source of the pit’s unnatural cold, and the object that supplied mana to all the inexplicable traps and barriers. There was no way any of those were natural phenomena.
“…This must be what we’ve been looking for then.”
Raizel grasped it without a moment’s hesitation. She couldn’t feel anything special from the orb other than the overwhelming amount of mana resonating from it; even though there were other objects that could resonate copious amounts of mana, this orb far surpassed the levels of mana-taining objects.
She slowly brought it over towards the rest of the group. Ilias shifted her gaze from her father to Raizel as the steel dragon approached them.
“Wait…what is that?”
“Probably the kid’s heart.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what they came here to find, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I mean…that blue orb is a heart? Shouldn’t it be like, an an?”
“Hell if I know. Probably some lord-thing again.”
Raizel then looked towards Bruton, who was still trying to salvage the dragonlord’s broken reserve.
“Hey, old man. What’s wrong with ‘em? Is he gon up or not?”
“…Their reserve’s been broken. He’ll e to eventually, but…their reserve won’t remain intact. There’s no telling what it’ll do to their body.”
“If this is a heart, then it could fix that, right?”
Bruton widened his eyes at the question.
Raizel was right. Mana reserves were located within the heart. A reserve’s destru couldn’t be reversed, but if oo supposedly attain a new heart altogether…
“It…could work.”
“Better than ‘won’t work’.”
The steel dragon exged gnces between the orb she was holding, and the boy lying down below.
‘…Do I just shove it dowhroat or something? It’s a little big for that though.’
Raizel quizzically lowered the orb, letting it make tact with the dragonlord. Si’s theirs to begin with, maybe it’ll just sink right in or something.
The orb softly began to glow as it touched the human boy. The light became gradually brighter until it was nearly blinding.
“Ugh…why does everything in this pce have to glow?!”
No one had an ao that. Ilias merely had a ent that wasn’t spoken out loud.
‘…And something usually goes wrong afterwards too.'
Soon, a surge of mana khe three dragons away, sending them flying into the chamber’s walls. Only Serenis remained where they’d been with the gleaming orb, ing a blinding radiahat filled the chamber.
“Raizel, you see anything?!”
“What makes you think I see anything?!”
“I don’t know, you’re metal! Doesn’t light reflect right off of your eyes or something?!”
‘Daughter, I don’t think that’s how it works…’
Bruton bit his lips as he struggled to keep his eyes open. The burst of light that illumihe entire chamber refused to fade, and none of them could tell what was happening to Serenis.
Truth be told, Bruton wasn’t too fond of the stratle human boy that had barged into their homes, decred himself their lord, a about thrashing an a relic that elders had spoken o go near. But at the same time…
‘…I don’t feel ined to hate them.’
It wasn’t that Bruton trusted every word that came out of Serenis; he’d even wondered if the boy was trying to awakeyrant dragon his elders had spoken of. Bruton just found it strangely difficult to distrust or dislike the self-procimed dragonlord – especially after what they’d doo stop the colpse from reag the two girls.
Meanwhile, a kindred warmth was c through Serenis’ body. The orb really did begin to sink into the dragonlord’s chest as a distant voice echoed within her ears.
- ‘Mother, look! I roast meat by myself now!’
Even while unscious, a genuine smile curved the dragonlord’s lips.
- ‘One day, I’ll bee a great lord. When that day es, you’ll have nothing to do but sit bad watch me lead our brethren, mother! It won’t be long!’
‘If only I was there to see it.’
Only the first lords' hearts could survive the test of time. Any other heart would eventually wither away, regardless of its owner’s former strength. As this heart had persisted through the turies, it had to be her own.
This orb was her former heart.
A, at the same time it wasn’t.
When Serenis headed to the summit with her dragonkin, a single elder had remai the s to take care of the eggs and the newborn that were left behind.
Serenis had hoped that her heart would be in his possession. That he would have retrieved her body, and ied her heart. She had hoped and hoped that he would still be alive to wele her return.
She desperately wao believe in such a future – that the frozen corpse couldn’t possibly be who she thought it was. She’d blinded her own eyes and suppressed her own doubts, but no longer could she do so as the orb began to flood her body with a gentle, longing warmth.
“…Vulka.”
As she came to, the dragonlord softly whispered her son’s name.
***Upload Notice: To finish Pay Your Respects this week, both 8 & 9 have been uploaded today. It'll finish tomorrow at 10, which will be uploaded alongside a bonus chapter.***
