Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Four: Sleeping Hostage
‘But I do not sense the kind of magical power in you that could make a panacea…’
“I’ve temporarily used up all my magical power! I couldn’t have infiltrated here otherwise! —How did you get in here, Ms. Pegasus? You are a pegasus, right?”
‘I did something similar. I cut down my magical power and forced my way into this floor, this place… to save my child from a fate more cruel than death after it was abducted. You can rest assured the dungeon has not collapsed.’
The wise pegasus licked the egg while accurately guessing Karen’s concerns.
If you looked closely at her appearance, compared to the forms depicted in paintings and emblems, she was more haggard and emaciated, her feathers had fallen out, the hair covering her body had thinned, and there were bald spots.
If the dungeon wasn’t broken, then what was broken was surely this pegasus.
For her child.
This monster was a mother trying to save her child, even at the cost of her own body.
Thinking this, the trembling of Karen’s body gradually subsided.
“For now, may I hear about your child?”
‘Cannot you make a panacea? Are you trying to buy time by talking? …Was it a lie just to get by?’
When the pegasus narrowed her eyes with their long lashes, it became hard to breathe again.
Karen said with her face contorting from the breathlessness:
“I can make one. But rather than making it blindly, I want to make a panacea suited to your child’s condition. It relates to the materials I’ll use, so I’d like as much information as possible. Or is this a situation where every second counts? I don’t even know that. I don’t ‘understand’ it.”
‘You are right—Understanding is indeed important…’
She was a frighteningly reasonable monster.
Karen had heard stories that high-ranking monsters were scary because they were intelligent, but she hadn’t thought they would feel this intellectual.
‘This child is beginning to rot. But because I intervened, it is not a matter of seconds. If anything, it would be more accurate to say it is already too late.’
“Too late…?”
‘Normally, the monster eggs need large amounts of magical power to grow. But after being brought to a place without magical power and having strange devices used to steal magical power, this child is already about to be born without enough magical power. There is no longer sufficient time for a proper body to form. It will not be in time.’
Having boasted she could cure it, Karen panicked about needing to say something, but the pegasus shifted her gaze from Karen to the unconscious Waltride.
‘So as soon as the child is born, I must feed it a fresh creature with high magical power. Conveniently, live prey with very dense magical power has arrived. This might allow me to supplement the magical power it couldn’t obtain in the egg.’
Karen gulped down her saliva.
Why was only Waltride kept alive and brought here?
It was to make her live prey for the pegasus child to be born.
“I-If my panacea improves your child’s condition, would you release that person?”
‘Yes, that would be fine. If it is cured, I will release her.’
The pegasus narrowed her eyes cruelly.
‘If you raise this child to be a pegasus with magnificent wings to soar through the sky and magnificent hooves to gallop across the plains, I will wish for nothing else.’
It was a gaze she occasionally saw as an alchemist.
Now that she thought about it, Helfried had sometimes had eyes like this too.
The pegasus didn’t truly believe her child could be cured.
Even so, she couldn’t help but cling to a thread of hope—her eyes were desperate.
Until now, Karen had been confident in her work.
But this time was different. She had accepted without understanding what she needed to do, knowing nothing.
Karen realized she had made a terrifying, easy promise and felt a chill, but there was no turning back.
‘Do you understand what was being done here, human girl? They were collecting monster eggs and stealing their magical power. Even after all their magical power was stolen, for a while they could not die, and the monster children suffered terrible, terrible hunger… and finally died and rotted completely black. Everything lined up there is the wretched remains of such pitiful eggs.’
“By any chance… if magical power were poured into an egg that had turned black, even though it should already be dead, would the egg kill the person who poured magical power into it, trying to obtain that magical power?”
‘Yes. Not intending to kill, just wanting magical power.’
Karen remembered the story of Isaac pouring magical power into a black stone and summoning a monster.
“If magical power were poured into your child’s egg after it had turned black, would you notice?”
‘I would notice. Even if I were on the lowest floor of the dungeon, I would notice and go to retrieve it. That is exactly what I did. I have been searching and searching for so long. Thanks to you humans making such a commotion, I finally realized it was around here.’
That might be why the dungeon had been acting strangely.
A monster that should have been on the fortieth floor had crossed floors, even at the cost of breaking herself, appearing on an incompatible floor.
And the black stone that Isaac had possessed was probably a treant’s egg. That’s why a treant appeared. An Elder Treant tried to retrieve it even by crossing floors. Because it heard its child’s remains calling for help.
Karen’s head ached as she understood the mechanism of the black stone that summoned monsters. She had never heard stories of monsters taking revenge on humans.
“I never thought monsters were capable of such deep affection—um, well, I’m sorry that humans keep killing monsters.”
Karen had even killed slimes before.
The pegasus looked blankly at Karen, who bowed her head.
‘Being killed by itself is fine.’
“Huh?”
‘It just means you fought and lost. That cannot be helped. It is the Goddess’s providence that the weak lose and die.’
The pegasus expounded on her own ethics that were difficult for the human Karen to understand. It was the first time she’d learned the ethics of monsters as told by a monster.
“But this is different. Dying in the worst agony and remaining trapped here with one’s soul—that is unacceptable.”
The pegasus looked at the eggs lined up against the wall with disgust.
The hunger Julius was being made to experience was probably the eggs’ hunger. "The nightmare of a certain monster" that remained even after death—unable to keep looking at its true nature, Karen averted her eyes from the wall.
“So in other words, it’s a severe developmental deficiency due to loss of magical power, right? What has a high possibility of being effective is probably a panacea, as I thought. There’s also the option of a detox potion, but I think the panacea includes detoxifying effects. Whatever this liquid in this device used to steal magical power from the egg is, if it’s soaked into the egg, detoxify it and replenish the magical power. After birth, feed the child plenty of nutritious food, I suppose.”
‘Nutritious food, you say.’
The pegasus glanced at Waltride.
Karen wished she wouldn’t look at Waltride that way.
“For now, shall we leave this place? I think staying somewhere devoid of magical power isn’t good for your child.”
‘Then your companions would capture us, would they not? I know very well how humans’ eyes light up when they see us. You alone would be one thing, but in my current state, I cannot fight against a large group. So I do not intend to leave here until this child is born. I am covering and protecting this child with my magical power, so there will be no ill effects.’
Though she hadn’t meant to try to lure her out, it was true that, whether Karen tried to stop them or not, there would be humans who would want a pegasus, dead or alive.
“I’m sorry. My thinking was shallow.”
‘…It is fine. Mind games are part of battle too. But you really do seem to want to cure my child.’
“I am an alchemist, after all.”
‘Alchemist…’
The pegasus said as if murmuring and narrowed her eyes.
‘What is your name?’
“I’m called Karen the alchemist. What is your name, Ms. Pegasus?”
‘I have no such thing. So, Alchemist Karen? What will you do next?’
“I’ll go back once.”
‘What?’
After the pegasus made a slack-jawed face, she gradually increased her magical pressure.
Karen calmed the pegasus down before speaking:
“Please calm down. I’m going back because it’s necessary. In the first place, I can’t make a panacea here. I don’t have the materials, and my magical power won’t recover either.”
‘…That is true.’
“So I’ll return to the tent once, sleep—”
‘Sleep?’
“Humans can’t function without sleep! We eat meals too! We wash our bodies and change clothes! It’s called purification and preparation!”
‘If that is necessary to make the panacea, then it cannot be helped.’
“Then I’ll make the panacea over there and bring it back. I’ll see you later.”
Saying this, Karen casually tried to pick up Waltride, but the pegasus stopped her by firmly pressing down on the hem of Waltride’s dress.
‘You will leave this human behind, right? Right?’
“Yes…”
‘I will wait until the sun rises and sets.’
That would be plenty of time to make the panacea.
Karen nodded.
“This person is called Lady Waltride… if she wakes up, please tell her I’ll be back eventually.”
‘Waltride, I see.’
If she woke up, it would be unfortunate for Waltride.
Ideally, Karen could return while Waltride was still asleep, but if she returned in a half-recovered state and made a poor-quality panacea that didn’t achieve the expected effects, a future of death also awaited. Though it was unfortunate for Waltride, there was no choice but to take a full rest, make the panacea, and return.
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