Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Seven: Success or Failure of the Request
“I’m back! Has Lady Waltride woken up?”
‘She opened her eyes and looked at me earlier, said, “This must be a dream,” then closed her eyes again, so I have conveyed your message to her. And your fates as well.’
This meant that the sleeping beauty Waltride, lying there with a face as white as paper, was already awake.
Karen set down the pot and approached Waltride.
“Are you awake?”
“I wanted to believe it was just a dream…!”
Waltride shed tears with her eyes still closed.
Being kidnapped and nearly made into living meal for a monster—what terrible misfortune.
‘You could have escaped alone, yet you came back, Alchemist Karen.’
“There’s a patient I might be able to cure, so of course I came back.”
“Not for me, your friend?”
She probably shouldn’t say that in front of the dangerous mother and her child, who was the patient.
Karen lightly poked Waltride’s cheek.
“Now then, I’ve brought the panacea, but… I’m wondering how to get this potion into the egg. What should we do? Put it inside?”
She imagined a curry with a giant boiled egg in it.
‘That is an incredible aroma, but it is an oral potion, correct? If you made it that way, using it that way should have the best effect.’
“I think so too, but—”
‘It will hatch soon. Please have the newborn child drink that potion.’
Curry right after being born.
Karen thought this was quite a hard-core start to a dietary life for only a moment, but since the first candidate for a meal had been Waltride, this was actually milder.
However, even after waiting for some time, no baby pegasus emerged from the egg.
‘—Ah, it is so weakened that it cannot even come out of the egg.’
The pegasus hung her head. She looked much more emaciated and thin than when Karen had seen her earlier.
“Ms. Pegasus, um, shall we try putting the egg in the curry!?”
If it were to die without ever being born, that would be the end of everything.
Karen desperately made the suggestion, but the pegasus slowly shook her head.
‘If it is so weak it cannot even be born, it is already impossible.’
“But I don’t want to give up! So I’d like to try!”
‘It is enough already—this child no longer needs food. So I will release you as well.’
“Eh…?”
Karen had thought that giving up here meant only death, but the pegasus said with calm eyes:
‘I do not need food anymore. This child does not need it either. So it is fine now. You may go wherever you wish.’
The pegasus’s ready acceptance was fortunate for Karen and Waltride. Karen just needed to take Waltride and escape from this place. Then she could return to Julius.
—However, seeing a mother giving up in front of a child who was still alive, whether the opponent was a monster or not, stirred Karen’s nature as an alchemist.
After glancing between Waltride, who was still pretending to sleep, and the pegasus holding the egg with her eyes closed, Karen stepped closer to the pegasus.
“Your child isn’t dead yet, is it? So I don’t want to give up. Because I’m an alchemist!”
“In other words, it lacks magical power? Would it be acceptable if I tried supplying some?”
Waltride, who had gotten up at some point, was beside Karen before she knew it. She seemed to grasp the situation. She must have been listening while pretending to sleep.
“Are you all right, Lady Waltride? You’re afraid of even slimes among monsters.”
“I’ve been familiar with pegasi since childhood through paintings and tapestries; they frequently appear in stories featuring my ancestors, and I’ve admired them, so hearing you speaking so normally with one, I’ve surprisingly become fine with it.”
For Waltride, an S-rank monster was better than a slime. She briskly approached the egg’s side and looked up at the pegasus with eyes filled with reverence and longing.
“May I infuse magical power into your child?”
‘Just being in this place should be draining your magical power, but do you still have magical power remaining within you?’
“Yes. I still have some. In fact, thanks to having it moderately absorbed, I’m even comfortable.”
Apparently, for Waltride, who had problems due to too much magical power, an environment where magical power was somewhat drained was actually easier.
Julius had looked pained just being in this place—or perhaps that was because of the black egg fragments.
‘You really do have high magical power density. Very well, I will ask this of you. This child would also feel better with as much magical power as possible.’
In a resigned tone, the pegasus licked the egg.
Waltride touched the pegasus’s egg and began infusing magical power.
The living egg that hadn’t completely rotted didn’t try to steal magical power from Waltride.
It diligently absorbed only the power that poured down.
“Mm!? I heard a tapping sound from inside!”
‘Even if it can barely be born… like this, it would not be able to fight once born.’
“Is there really any need for it to fight?”
‘But we monsters are born to fight. The Goddess tests how bravely we fight, and how gloriously we die.’
“I was also born with magical power beyond what I could handle, so I’ve been told since childhood that I bear a destiny to fight. But I intend to resist that destiny with all my might. Your child can do the same!”
Waltride had a determined expression while infusing magical power into the egg.
Karen’s heart raced at the image of the goddess the pegasus described.
The goddess, as described by a monster—just where and how could one ever access information like that? The goddess created monsters to make them fight and die, she said. Was this the pegasus’s personal belief, or was that what monsters were?
Waltride didn’t seem to care at all about such mysteries of the world, and was passionately protesting to the mother who drove her child to death.
‘That may be fine for humans, but not for monsters.’
“There’s no such thing as ‘not’! Do your best!”
The pegasus and Waltride exchanged slightly mismatched words while watching and cheering on the egg. The pegasus had resigned eyes, but didn’t try to stop what Waltride was doing.
Eventually, the egg cracked from the inside.
“Karen! It’s about to be born! Bring the panacea here! Feed it as soon as it sticks out its head!”
When Karen carried the curry near the egg, the egg began cracking in earnest.
“Whatever your mother says, just because you can’t fight doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be born! Do your best, child of pegasus!”
Encouraged by Waltride, a piece of eggshell fell inward.
Karen prepared herself mentally.
The pegasus mother had said it hadn’t fully grown.
It could be in any form—Karen braced herself, but the pegasus child who poked its head out through the gap in the cracked eggshell wasn’t in the form Karen had imagined.
“This is—”
Waltride started to say something, but before she could say anything, the pegasus reacted.
‘Ugh.’
Seeing the pegasus avert her eyes from her own child, who had emerged from the egg as if she couldn’t bear to watch, Waltride closed her mouth.
But to Karen and probably to Waltride as well, the pegasus child’s form didn’t look terrible. What emerged from the egg was a small, round pegasus, fluffy like a stuffed animal. Its small body had even smaller decorative wings, minuscule hooves attached to soft pink paw-pad-like hooves.
To Karen’s eyes, it looked utterly adorable.
However, looking closely into the egg, its lower body was dyed pitch black, and the pegasus child was listless.
“Kyu…”
“Karen, the panacea!”
“Yes, Lady Waltride!”
Karen brought a spoonful of curry to the pegasus child’s mouth. The pegasus child seemed to sniff at it, then ate it with a chomp.
“Kyuu!”
“It seems to have found it delicious, Karen.”
“Can it eat more?”
The pegasus child ate well. And with each bite, the blackened parts of its body faded and regained whiteness. After finishing all the curry, which was clearly more in volume than its body size, it curled up on Waltride’s lap and fell asleep.
Seeing this, Karen and Waltride looked at each other with relief.
“Ms. Pegasus, with this—”
‘It is far too immature as a monster.’
Even seeing her child, who had regained its pure white form, the pegasus didn’t look happy at all. Just as Karen had initially sensed, the pegasus hadn’t averted her eyes because her child was dyed black. She was disappointed seeing this fluffy, soft-looking form.
Though it seemed painful even to look at her sleeping child, the pegasus gently licked the newborn clean.
Karen had been able to save the pegasus child’s life. But this child didn’t seem capable of flying freely through the sky or running across the land.
As an alchemist, Karen had failed to fulfill the pegasus’ request.
The sun sank, and the faint sunlight that had been entering into the secluded laboratory gradually faded away.
Pet Pegasus getto!
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