“Why in the world would you fight in this body?”
Minerva, crumpled on top of me, spoke quietly.
Each time she opened her mouth, her faint breath tickled me.
“This is a body I’m not used to… I don’t know how you humans move around so well on two legs, much less a tail. I would have enjoyed it more if you hadn’t been so stubborn and fought in your original body….”
With that, she coughed once more, blood pouring from her mouth.
I carefully raised my hand and touched her back.
“Ugh…!”
“Oh, sorry.”
She gritted her teeth as she hastily pushed my hand away, then gave a small nod.
“That’s more painful than I thought it would be. Who knew having your body destroyed would be so painful…”
“Minerva.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a little uncouth, but may I ask you a question?”
“Are you going to ask why I save you?”
I nodded, and she smirked.
“I already told you you are my prey, my chosen one, and no one else can touch you. It had to be me who killed you.”
She was bleeding heavily, but she still showed me a smile.
“That’s it.”
“…….”
“Oh, why do you have that look on your face, my dear.”
Minerva said, slowly reaching for my face.
She placed her fingers on my mouth and pushed them up.
“Yes, smile like that. It’s so pretty…the way you laugh. I know it’s funny to say this to a man, but….”
Minerva touched my face, still smiling, and muttered.
“Alas, it is a pity, my first time. Only at the end of my life had I ever wished to be a human.
“Run away.”
I said, surprising even myself.
How could the one who planned to kill her by any means tell her to flee?
And Minerva, hearing my words, laughed as if she found them hilarious.
“Don’t laugh, don’t laugh… You can do it now. Run away. And….”
“You should have done that. Then maybe there would have been a different ending. But….”
With a groan, she rose from her seat, using her guandao for support.
Directly above us, her dragon form stood steadfast as if protecting us.
“You said in the past that you would wait for me after a hundred thousand nights. I said I would also wait for you and that we would settle the score. Where else would you go but here, where that promise was fulfilled?”
“…….”
“There is nothing more to be desired.”
Minerva sighed quietly.
“The day that yesterday’s me… was so anxiously waiting and dreaming of today… and it has finally arrived….”
She mumbled something wistfully and raised her weapon in the air.
Then, before I could do anything, she plunged it into her chest.
With a snap, her hand began to dig deeper into the wound where the spear had pierced.
“Minerva, what are you…!”
“The dragon’s heart… grants 1,000 years of life to those who devour it.”
I looked up, startled by something sticky wetting the top of my head.
It was Minerva.
A gaping hole had been torn through the center of the dragon’s chest, and blood, still hot, was pouring out of it toward me.
“The dragon’s heart… grants immortality to those who consume it…”
Minerva muttered repeatedly.
Her hand held something that emitted an unknown light.
“Forgive me. This is all I can give the man who has defeated me twice. I can’t look at you straight in the face.”
“You, are you crazy? Didn’t I tell you to run…!”
“Well.”
She faced me with her eyes closed.
“I don’t know why….”
Smiling gently again, she shook her head and mumbled.
“Maybe it has something to do…with how much I wish I’d been born human…and how I’ve come to yearn for it.”
She handed me what she had in his hand as if to say.
“Don’t worry, it’s not dangerous or anything…It won’t turn you sick or corrupt when you eat it; it’s just… a collection of energy.”
“…What happens to you if you eat it?”
I muttered. I felt embarrassed for asking a stupid question.
“Foolish, art thou. Canst thou live without a heart?”
She looked at me as if I were an idiot.
“More than that, why do you refuse me? I am your enemy… There’s no need to show kindness to an enemy….”
“I know, I know you’re my enemy, I know I have to kill you…It’s the only chance I have at going back!”
I forced myself to my feet and looked at her.
I was aware of how contradictory my words and actions were.
But because of the resonance I had experienced earlier, I couldn’t make sense of my mind and body.
I don’t know what I was seeing, but I do know that it was something very important, something I should always remember.
Memories that I can’t remember clearly.
And because of those memories, I couldn’t see her as an enemy in front of me now.
“But, why on earth would you…!”
“Oh, that’s right. I was supposed to tell you…”
Minerva mumbled that in a dazed voice.
I could instinctively tell she was too drained to think straight.
The dragon above us was slowly crumbling.
Her human form, too, was becoming increasingly distorted.
“Your sister, you needed to find two things…I found one, and the other…it’s…couldn’t….”
She held it out to me, wobbly, in a small voice.
“Take it… Soon, this will be gone… Please, don’t make my death in vain….”
“…Damn it, really!”
With a swear, I forcefully grabbed the crystalline thing in her hand.
She smirked as I brought it to my mouth.
“Good.”
She said it was a crystal of energy, but I could tell it wasn’t just that.
I gritted my teeth and bit down on her crystal, feeling uncomfortably nauseous.
“Yes, hurry.”
My teeth were only human. They couldn’t break it.
But I was absorbing it.
I could taste her blood, energy, and life in my mouth.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I swallowed, feeling as if I were holding a mouthful of ocean water.
“You’re doing good. Come on. Eat more, eat all.”
As I cried and moved my mouth, a notification popped in front of my eyes, but I didn’t pay attention.
A moment later, I felt something familiar twitching at the edge of my consciousness.
[Holy shit, what the hell are you doing that’s causing such vast energy…!?]
It was Svengali.
He muttered something in a startled voice, then stopped, dumbfounded and surprised.
[My God, Minerva…? What the hell is this….]
“…….”
She didn’t even have time to answer him.
She could feel something active rising in her stomach, eating up all her energy.
As she breathed raggedly to calm it, Minerva nodded and muttered.
“…Did you eat all of it? Then it’s a good thing you did because if you hadn’t, you might have burned up… This body’s blood is like a poison.”
She fell to her knees in a pale, shaggy heap as she said this.
I quickly picked her up and was again amazed at her surprisingly light body.
“Kill me.”
Minerva murmured quietly in my arms.
“What?”
“Come on. The others are coming.”
Her voice dropped to a quiet whisper.
“I’ve caught glimpses of what the others are saying. As always, the humans are divided amongst themselves, and some would do unsavory things to you.”
Minerva slowly raised her hand and pressed her guandao into my hand.
“Kill me before you too are labeled a traitor.”
“Stop talking nonsense…!”
“Either that, or you intend to allow me to be dragged away by the humans and subjected to all manner of humiliation?”
Her words made me freeze.
A living, incapacitated seven-headed species.
That alone was enough to make anyone want to take her alive.
And if she looked like this now…
“Yes.”
Gritting my teeth, I picked up the guandao she held.
“I’ll end you. No one else. I, the one you have recognized, will be your end.”
Minerva said nothing.
She merely smiled gratefully.
“…Ah.”
She said nothing as the gunadao plowed into her chest.
She merely groaned as it pierced her lungs.
“…I’m not afraid of death now.”
She and I sat there, half hugging each other.
The weapon just kept plunging deeper.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Today, the day that yesterday’s me was so anxiously waiting for and dreaming of has finally arrived….”
“Just….”
“The tomorrow I was looking forward to after today will never come… I am only a little sad about that.”
With those words, Minerva’s body gradually turned to smoke and began to disappear.
I was speechless as her weight grew lighter and lighter.
“Be careful, my dear.”
Minerva muttered quietly.
“Milited may be more troublesome than I am, so be prepared. He is weak, but not as weak as Margo.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Venus, Yuno. Consider these two my equals. In other words, don’t fight them head-on. You must… keep them in the same place, and the tide will turn in your favor.”
“I see.”
“And….”
Minerva paused as if considering and then buried her face in my chest.
“I… I want to say something more, but….”
“Why don’t you just say something?”
“Can I?”
With those words, Minerva began to tell me several things.
Half of it was unintelligible and gibberish, but I kept nodding in agreement with her.
“…I really don’t understand.”
Minerva, who had been talking for a while, muttered quietly and looked at me.
Then, with a jerk of her head, she leaned against my shoulder and sighed.
“I wonder why he made me want this.”
She sighed again.
“If he let me have desires, he should’ve made them achievable…”
I no longer felt any weight in my arms.
[You have successfully completed the quest – Third Evil].
[Power – A new power begins to take hold within you!]
[Power – You have obtained Dragonblood].
Notifications floated before my eyes.
Dirt slipped through the cracks of my fingers.
A nameless guandao that has long since rusted and broken along with its owner.
My mind went blank for some reason, and I just sat there.
[What the hell, get out of there!]
“…Svengali.”
[This is not the time to call my name, look up, look up!]
I looked up at his words and burst out laughing.
Minerva’s body now turned to stone, cracked ominously as if it were about to collapse at any moment.
[Run, run, you’ll be crushed if you stay put!]
I tried to move at his words but could only roll around on the floor in disgust.
No way…
I gritted my teeth and tried to crawl across the ground to escape.
“Gotcha.”
Two pure white hands slipped out from under me.
They hugged me gently, pulling me to the ground.
“Sorry, I’m late.”
The owner of those hands was none other than Ye-Seul.
She didn’t even take the time to say anything else and quickly pulled me into the shadow.
Just before I was taken into the shadow, I saw the stone raining down.
For some reason, I heard a sigh of relief somewhere.
