Chapter 8. Map
At night, once the research was finished, Raphael limped back to her room filled with resentment. Her right leg and left hand were bandaged, and the wounds throbbed painfully, every movement feeling like it drilled into her bones.
Unable to move, she lay quietly on the bed for quite some time before her companions returned one by one.
They had been cooped up in the cage for too long, rarely having opportunities to move outside, so they returned with a reluctant expression on their faces. But soon, they were drawn to Raphael’s tragic condition on the bed, and Ral cautiously knelt beside her, looking worried.
“Lady Raphael, your wounds…”
They all knew about the incident where Raphael was shot, and they were aware of how those wounds tormented her every night.
“It’s nothing…”
Raphael opened her eyes slightly but kept her eyelids shut, so things were still a bit blurry.
Ral, however, was persistent, sniffing around the bandaged areas with great intensity, then covering her nose and wrinkling her face as she exclaimed,
“How bitter… that human must have poisoned Lady Raphael! I’m sure of it! My mother used to use this kind of poison, and I saw her pigs screaming!”
Keshil slapped her on the head hard,
“Don’t spout nonsense. Your mother raises Lulu pigs, how could she poison them? Move aside.”
She lowered her head and sniffed at Raphael’s wound, then looked up at Fashir and Mill, saying,
“It’s blue flower herb, a medicine for stopping blood and healing. Lady Raphael, he helped you tend to your wounds; that fatso definitely didn’t treat them well, otherwise, it wouldn’t hurt like this at night.”
“I didn’t ask him to help me tend to my wounds!”
Raphael, feeling ungrateful, suddenly opened her eyes and interrupted Keshil. But seeing her companions’ worried looks, she pursed her lips and closed her eyes again.
How could she not know that the human was helping her with the wounds? She just didn’t want to admit it or wanted to treat the help as mockery, to motivate herself for a better assassination attempt against him.
“… Anyway, the most important thing now is for Raphael to rest well. Ral, stop making noise and come lay down here. Your tail always moves around; if it hits Raphael’s wounds, it won’t be good.”
Mill smiled and changed the topic. She looked at Ral and made arrangements for the night’s sleep in place of Raphael.
“Don’t, don’t! Why do you always say my tail moves around? I clearly don’t!”
“You were asleep; how would you know?”
Fashir smirked and touched her tail, teasing her.
“Raphael likes to sleep while hugging her tail; I’m just copying her. I’ll hold it well and won’t move it around.”
Ral quickly lay down next to Raphael, trying to imitate her by hugging her own blue tail. But her tail wasn’t as long as Raphael’s, making it quite tricky to hug. Soon enough, she found that this sleeping position was uncomfortable and pouted at the motionless Raphael next to her.
Tonight, Raphael couldn’t hug her.
Meanwhile, Mill kindly held her in her arms and pulled her into the blankets,
“Alright, we all know it’s just a bit disobedient. At least your intention to hold it is good…”
“Just indulge her, Sister Mill. Her mother will think you’ve spoiled her.”
“My mother wouldn’t think that!”
Keshil lay down on the bed as well, murmuring, aligning with Fashir, and having little patience for the mischievous little Ral.
“.”
The room remained bright, with a glowing object above as seen in Fisher’s room. They wouldn’t turn it off, thinking that humans sleep in the light at night.
Raphael felt somewhat tired, so she closed her eyes. With each breath, the pain from her wounds slowly faded, turning into a cool and heavy sensation. She felt a bit sleepy.
Just before she fell asleep, she suddenly couldn’t remember when her companions had last spoken like this.
When had they been captured by humans?
A few months? Half a year, or even longer?
She thought in a daze, suddenly wanting to go home intensely.
“It seems your wounds are no longer painful.”
The next morning, Fisher called Raphael into his room. When she saw him, he was wearing a white shirt, standing behind his desk drinking cold coffee.
After Raphael arrived, he clapped his hands to turn on the nearby light and, just like the night before, gently pinched her right leg. This time, her scales didn’t stand up, nor did she emit that frightening steam.
That human seemed to become exceptionally serious during his research, as if his gaze swept over each of her scales and every inch of her skin.
Thinking of this, she suddenly felt a bit awkward, shifting her gaze to other decorations in the room.
“Hmm.”
As a response to his inquiry, she took a long time to reply to Fisher.
Fisher didn’t mind. After confirming no more blood was oozing from the wound, he slowly stood up and said, “The recovery speed of the dragon race exceeds my imagination; I estimate you’ll be able to run at full strength in just a day or two…”
“The dragon race is made up of natural warriors; our blood burns with flames from birth. This little injury…”
Raphael retracted her right leg, stretching her claws on the ground, her words tinged with pride.
Fisher didn’t pick up her comment, returning to his desk to wash his hands and said to her,
“There’s no breakfast today; we’re temporarily changing our route. We’ll first head to the nearest Kekken City for supplies and stay there for a day and night. This time away from the carriage will be a good opportunity for you.”
“.”
Raphael had no impression of the city he mentioned; in fact, she wasn’t even clear where they were right now. The Southern Continent was vast, and for the dragon race that lived along the southern shore all their lives, they didn’t even know they were taken across half a continent by that circus to a place closest to the Western Continent in the north.
Fisher organized his attire, put on a waistcoat, took out a pocket watch, and transformed into a proper gentleman. His finger pointed slightly, and a map unfolded from the wall, revealing its patterns.
“Here is…”
On the wall, a “world map” made by the Saint Nali Royal Mapping Committee appeared before Raphael’s eyes. Even though she couldn’t understand any of the writing on it, the massive map still gave her some simple guesses.
“This is the continent where your kind has lived for generations, and your hometown should be in this area, at most not reaching the center.”
Fisher gestured to a small area on the southern part of the Southern Continent, simply drawing a line that encompassed the dragon race’s history over generations.
Raphael had once longed to leave the tribe and see the outside world. She had run away from home multiple times, embarking on a journey, thinking she had traveled far and wide, reaching the ends of the earth; in reality, she had only covered a small corner of this vast continent.
She looked toward the upper part of the map, where there was a more detailed section with various defined borders, many annotations marked on the continent, facing the Southern Continent. It was of equal size, filled with human writing.
“You… you really came from the sea.”
They came from the sea, bringing slaughter and flames to this continent, occupying this originally peaceful land.
“Yes, to be precise, we came by steamboat. If your assassination didn’t succeed, I would have taken you to see what that is.”
“I don’t want to see!”
“Hmm… go call them to get up. We need to set off.”
Fisher snapped his fingers, and the map that had impacted Raphael so much rolled back up. He adjusted his hat and staff, pulled out a cigarette from his pocket, and stepped out of the carriage via the stairs.
Outside the carriage, the morning wilderness brought a humid breeze. Fisher lit the tobacco. Amidst the swirling smoke, he looked through the purple magic circle outside the carriage at the distant mountains, faintly catching a glimpse of a wisp of gray smoke in the far-off hills.
There lay a settlement of Western Continent humans, likely the Kekken City they were heading to.
He let out a quick whistle, and the purple magic slowly withdrew from the surface of the carriage. The horses were awakened, shaking their tails as they headed to the river for a drink.
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(End of chapter)
