My Strange Savior - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

“It’s okay.”

With a caring gaze, the child’s trembling lips conveyed his sadness, but with the thought of needing to save his parents, he bravely finished speaking.

“A scary-looking person came down from the dragon’s back, saying he was the king of this world and said strange things…”

“I see. That must have been terrifying.”

“My mom and dad told me to hide in the house… it was too hot…”

Although his words were disjointed, Gia roughly understood. She held the shivering child in her arms. How terrifying it must have been.

How frightening it must have been for a young child, to suddenly encounter a dragon descending from the sky, spewing fire, and not knowing the fate of their parents in the darkness. It must have been too heavy a burden for a child to bear. 

At the thought of what might have happened if the fire had spread further or if Morrison had been determined, Gia’s eyes welled up with anger.

“And then the dragon breathed fire again.”

In response to the child’s words, Gia gently brushed his head, expressing sympathy for what he had endured. She couldn’t let him feel guilty for surviving.

Understanding her feelings all too well, Gia exhaled deeply in her embarrassment over the luck of surviving in this situation.

“And now you’re safe. I’ll stay by your side with this knight here until you wake up.”

Referring to herself as an older sister and calling Kalion an uncle despite being younger, Gia held the child in her arms while sitting facing him.

“Sleep and wake up later.”

Seemingly reassured by Gia’s words, the child’s eyes gradually closed, and his head dropped gently. 

Kalion, who had silently observed Gia’s extraordinary tenderness toward the child, respectfully lowered his head and looked at the sleeping child.

“So, some were kidnapped, is that what he’s saying?”

“It sounds like it to me.”

Kalion, having grasped the core of the disjointed narrative, lowered his head in seriousness and gazed at the sleeping child.

“The dragon swept people up indiscriminately with its claws and then flew back into the sky. His parents might have been inside it. So…”

Pondering the child’s words, Kalion turned to Gia to clear up his doubts.

“Why did he kill some and capture others?”

Gia couldn’t fully understand Morison’s intentions. 

She carefully laid the sleeping child on the sleeping bag to prevent him from waking up and pondered the question.

Why were some killed while others were captured? She couldn’t fathom his actions.

“Experiment? For what? I understand turning the legendary dragon into a zombie in this world, but I can’t comprehend the actions that followed.”

“Well, I don’t know everything either.”

“As a being that tamed monsters… was he that powerful in your world too?”

“He was the most powerful among the zombies I knew. Not in terms of combat strength, but he could control zombies. Moreover, he was an exceptional researcher.”

As she gently brushed the trembling child’s back, Gia, feeling helpless, pressed her forehead. Even as he slept, seeing the child’s hands clutching his shirt tightly made her heartache.

Unable to do anything else, Gia lay beside the child and ran her fingers through his tousled hair.

“Is there a place we can leave this child?”

In response to Gia’s words, Kalion leaned against a large rock.

He was still in pain from his torn injuries, making it difficult for him to stand properly. Given that he had run down the mountain with injuries that would be difficult for a normal person to come down with, it was only natural that he was suffering from intense pain.

“If we walk for about a day from here, we should reach a fairly large city. If the boy’s description of the dragon flying in that direction is correct, likely, he went back towards the mountains.”

Kalion, whose thoughts had been consumed by Morrison and the dragon, slowly raised his body and leaned against a rock.

“Why?”

“Our unit came here to form a punitive squad to exterminate rampaging monsters suddenly appearing.”

“Unit?”

“Yes. They were assembled to deal with the monsters that suddenly started rampaging.”

“When I came, there was no one here.”

There was no one but corpses, to be precise. Gia asked if there were any other people present.

“We’re in a situation where we might be wiped out, so I ordered all the remaining squad members to retreat.”

“Oh, quite the commander you are. So you were fighting alone in the pouring rain back then. When I saw you, I was wondering why you were all alone in the rain, fighting monsters.”

Gia looked at Kalion as if to say that she recognized his bravery, and he cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Of course.”

Gia’s praise made Kalion’s cheeks flush slightly. Was it appropriate to take that as praise? Her praise-mixed actions were making him feel oddly embarrassed. 

Even if he were praised as a genius with the sword his whole life, he had never felt this embarrassed.

“So where did the remaining squad members go? They don’t seem to be in this village.”

“They probably went to the nearest city. It’s impossible to contact the palace from small villages like this.”

Since small villages didn’t have a proper communication network, Kalion assumed that the squad members had gone to a place with facilities for contacting the palace.

“They probably went to a place where we could take the child. The city of Morreta is quite large.”

“Alright. Let’s set out again when the child wakes up. By the way, why is your face so red? Are you running a fever?”

Which meant he should take medicine. Despite stubbornly refusing to take any when she suggested it, now that she saw his slightly flushed face, Gia playfully stuck out her tongue.

“Ah, no.”

Understanding what that pitiful look implied, Kalion raised his large hand, attempting to halt Gia’s actions that made him feel like a child. He couldn’t quite grasp why she kept treating him like a child, despite his imposing stature. Even though he was this big, in her eyes, he seemed fragile like a child.

“Let me see.”

Lying down beside the child, Gia playfully poked his hand, beckoning him over. 

“Wake up, come on.”

Kalion, who was leaning against a rock, sighed heavily and walked up to her side, following Gia’s words to be careful and not wake the child up.

“Bend down.”

“Yes?”

“I said, bend down.”

At Gia’s instruction to kneel, Kalion made a dumbfounded expression but obediently bent at the waist.

“You don’t have a fever. Still, just in case, take the medicine. You did bring some, right?”

Handing Kalion a vial of medicine, Gia recalled the moment she handed it to him and then reached out to check his temperature, placing her hand on his forehead.

“Even though you don’t have a fever, take it anyway. The water is in the water container.”

Following Gia’s calm instructions, Kalion took the medicine bottle and hesitated for a moment, then swallowed the medicine. He had a fleeting thought that he couldn’t seem to refuse her words.

Growling to himself, Kalion’s face stiffened momentarily.

The morning hours when they had been glaring at each other as adversaries seemed like a dream now.

“Take a nap. Your body must be exhausted from coming down the mountain.”

Had someone ever worried about him like this before? 

Being stronger than anyone else, he was unused to the feeling of someone caring for him. Despite these circumstances, the idea of sleep was bizarre. 

Contrary to his thoughts, Kalion quickly succumbed to sleep. His body prioritized healing his injuries, and sleep severed his consciousness effortlessly.

* * *

When did he fall asleep? Kalion blinked as he opened his eyes and looked around. 

The child was sound asleep in the sleeping bag. Despite the chilly weather, it wasn’t cold, likely because Gia had built a fire. He wondered when she had gathered wood and started the fire. 

He looked at the charred end of the well-burned logs with a sigh.

It must have been noisy, but he had fallen asleep without waking up even once. Trusting someone he had just met seemed insane. He chided himself for falling asleep so carelessly when he still had to remain vigilant towards potential threats.

As Kalion was about to get up to find Gia, a rustling sound accompanied by the blanket dropping onto his knees caught his attention.

“Did you sleep well?”

Kalion, who had been searching for Gia, turned his head back upon hearing her voice. In her hands was an unfamiliar bird with pure white feathers, presumably for food.

“Did you go to find food?”

Gia addressed Kalion, who had risen from his position, and the unseen dark bird on her hand displayed its smooth white plumage.

“You drooled?”

The unfamiliar sound of “drool” made Kalion involuntarily use his calloused hand to check around his mouth.

“Drool? I’ve never heard of that before.”

Kalion, who had never heard such a word in this context, looked at Gia with an incredulous expression, raising his eyebrows and feeling around his mouth with his hand.

“That’s just nonsense.”

In such a situation, Gia, who had been making jokes, looked at Kalion as if to say that he was hard to understand. 

Kalion, who looked at her with an expression of disbelief, finally relaxed.

“Really? Then did you cry?”

“Such words…

“Wah, wah. Are you done?”

While making crying sounds with her mouth, Gia maintained her composure. Kalion, who couldn’t believe that she was making jokes in such a situation, looked at her as if he couldn’t believe it.

“Do you want me to cry?”

“Does it change anything? The deed is done.”

With a resigned expression, Kalion loosened up his body. 

“You’re cracking jokes even in this situation.”

“Is it better to be serious and cry all the time? Does that make something fall from the sky? At best, it will only help you regain your composure.”

Having triumphed in the mental battle, Gia settled down beside the child and gazed at the roaring campfire. In her younger days, when she scavenged for food, avoiding people, she repeatedly resented and blamed herself for what had happened in the past.

Even though it wouldn’t change anything.

The constant tension had gradually worn her down, making it difficult to even breathe. She realized too late that regret and resentment wouldn’t change the fact that she was born as her father’s child. 

Desperately hoping and wishing wouldn’t undo the past. Whether she wanted it or not, things happened.

Even when she had been pushed into participating in the enhanced human project under the guise of assistance, she had tried to cry and escape. But she couldn’t forget the faces of those who had strangled her, the people who were forcing her into submission. She had sworn to herself that if she ever gained power, she would kill them first.

Even as a muzzle was placed on her mouth and the mutated virus infiltrated her body, the moment when she had decided to accept it, to come to terms with it, was as vivid as yesterday.

And the reason she didn’t resent herself was because she had changed her way of thinking. She realized that if she were in their shoes, she might have done the same. 

Maybe she would need to take out her frustration on someone else. And, after all, it was convenient for them to have someone like her, the daughter of the man who discovered the zombie virus, as a scapegoat for their resentment.

She had resigned himself and accepted it. The virus that had circulated through her veins, once raging and uncontrollable, had finally settled, and she began to adapt to her new body. She had to take an anti-zombie virus shot once a month, but her new body was not bad at all.

She gave up the thought of killing them all and began to actively rescue people, helping them adapt to their new lives. As a few years passed, the attitudes of people who had completely changed mocked her silently. 

They wondered when she had done such things. Her position in the shelter rose steadily.

People’s attitudes changed as if they’d never seen her do such a thing before. And so Gia became the shelter’s savior, not just the daughter of a famous doctor.

 Kalion, who watched Gia lost in her old thoughts as she gazed at the blazing campfire, sighed.

The brown eyes seemed to reflect the firelight, burning countless things. 

After a brief silence, Kalion spoke first.

“What should we do from now on?”