Sacrificing oneself to secure an escape for teammates.
Trading places, Callan knew she would do the same, were she to become a liability to the group.
In a desperate situation.
Under dire circumstances.
She would not hesitate to make the same decision.
But this was not desperation.
Abandoning her teammates to flee was something she could not bring herself to do.
“Few in the Kingdom’s Epidemic Prevention Bureau earn my respect, but you, you almost qualify.”
Setting the young girl down, Callan retrieved three empty vials from the ground, uncorked them, and pricked her finger, letting her blood drip inside.
“I can give you my blood, but it’s not for immediate use.”
“You’re staying too, then who will take her away?”
Helm’s tone was laden with bewilderment.
This was no time for impulsive heroics.
Someone who had ascended to the rank of chief surely understood the gravity of the situation and the distinctions between priorities.
“If she were to awaken and discover I had abandoned you to flee alone, what do you imagine she would think?”
“Do you doctors genuinely care about such things?”
“Is it so strange?”
With the three vials filled, she tossed them back.
“I, too, care about the opinions of my peers.”
“…Utterly incomprehensible.”
Helm took the vials of blood, a faint smile gracing his lips as he uttered those words.
It seemed not all those from the Hospital Department were as rigid and coldly rational as rumors suggested.
“Should you encounter anyone beyond saving, aid them in finding peace.”
“You needn’t tell me. Just ensure her safety.”
****
Rustling, scraping sounds—
The forest floor was rife with the sounds and marks of vegetation being crushed.
Perched atop a two-meter-tall tree trunk, Callan crouched, surveying the scene.
Moonlight, filtering weakly through the canopy, cast small, shifting patches of light upon the ground.
Beyond these illuminated spots, dense black fur seemed to ripple within the shadows.
‘Had she misjudged?’
‘No.’
‘Perhaps it was fur intermingled with something else, not solely black.’
‘Humans, perhaps.’
She could sense something lurking beneath those vast stretches of shadow, indistinct yet undeniably present, like a sprawling, hairy sludge slowly oozing forward.
A profound dread seized her heart.
A disturbing hypothesis began to form.
In all likelihood, those people, like the young girl, had been consumed by the shadows, which now likely contained their partially digested flesh and blood.
Leaping from one tree to the next, she continued her circuit around the clearing within the forest.
After one full rotation, the black shadows below her had extended, forming a complete encirclement that now crept inward towards the center.
“Damn it, we’re surrounded.”
She couldn’t help but curse aloud.
She shuddered to imagine what would have transpired had she agreed to Helm’s plan: one staying behind, two fleeing.
The most immediate consequence would have been stepping, completely unprepared, into that ‘sludge.’
With a flick of her arm, a scalpel, tethered to a fine thread, shot forth, piercing the surface of the shadow.
A reeking, bloody stench wafted forth as the blade slowly sank in.
Just before her blood lost its connection to her, Callan manipulated it, triggering a small explosion.
The blasted patch of bare earth was swiftly re-covered by the encroaching shadows.
She estimated it took roughly a minute for the shadows to completely absorb the blood from the scalpel.
Normal creatures struggled to absorb her blood.
Evidently, the vast mass below had transcended that category.
She tugged her finger, but the scalpel below offered no resistance; the metallic thread had melted away.
“What in the blazes is this…?”
Her expression turned grim.
The metallic threads she used were specially crafted, possessing a tensile strength far exceeding ordinary metal, capable of supporting the weight of several adults.
This implied that every scalpel she carried had just become a single-use tool.
More troubling still, her attack seemed to have alerted the entities below; they began to climb the trees, clinging to the roots.
Their ascent was not particularly swift.
Using her remaining threads, she attempted to leap towards the outer perimeter of trees, hoping to divert their attention and alter their trajectory.
After jumping across more than a dozen trees, she glanced back to see only a small fraction pursuing her, while the majority maintained their original course.
Their objective remained singular.
‘She had to turn back.’
Her only recourse now was to return, locate the other two, and devise a new strategy.
The night breeze whispered softly, stirring the mist that drifted like clouds, causing the scattered moonlight to shift intermittently.
Landing on a moonlit tree trunk, Callan paused, her gaze catching the faint, flickering orange glow of a fire in the clearing ahead.
‘They were safe.’
As she prepared to leap again, a cold, viscous sensation suddenly spread across her left shoulder.
The moonlight above her vanished; she instinctively looked up, only to be enveloped by a descending shadow.
****
In the center of the clearing, Helm had not been idle.
He had gathered a pile of dry branches and lit a bonfire beside the young girl.
Sitting, he simultaneously observed his surroundings and examined the assortment of items.
He experimented with combining various components.
He poured portions of the colorless potion and the blood-like concoction into an empty vial, shook them to mix, then captured a large moth and allowed it to imbibe the mixture. Nothing happened.
He coated a crucifix in the deep red liquid and prayed to the goddess, yet the outcome remained the same.
“What in the world am I doing…?”
Gazing at his blood-stained hands, he let out a self-deprecating chuckle.
Still, it wasn’t a complete loss.
Its inherent viscosity confirmed for him that the primary component of the vial’s contents was blood.
It had been specially treated to remove the metallic odor and prolong its shelf life.
Bang—
Bang—
A few sounds of flesh exploding drew his attention.
At the edge of the clearing, a dark figure plummeted heavily from a tree.
“Damn it!”
A sudden premonition of disaster struck him, and Helm immediately sprinted in that direction.
“What happened!?”
He turned over the woman who lay face down on the ground, and the sight that met his eyes was gruesome.
Her left shoulder, a quarter of her torso, and her entire arm were gone, leaving a savage, bloody wound as if she had been torn apart by a beast.
Furthermore, the woman’s neck and a large portion of her face were similarly ravaged, her skin completely corroded away, exposing the underlying vascular and muscular tissue.
To survive such horrific injuries was nothing short of a miracle.
“Cough…”
Callan, propped up by one arm, struggled to sit upright.
Seeing this, Helm immediately helped her up and moved towards the bonfire in the clearing.
“There’s no escape…”
The woman’s voice was weak and hoarse.
“Has she woken…?”
“No.”
Helm shook his head, simultaneously noticing the viscous black shadows creeping up from behind, and quickened his pace.
“We must use our last vestiges of strength to buy her time… so she can escape…”
The man remained silent.
He continued supporting her until they reached the bonfire, where she lay beside the young girl.
Turning, he gathered all the vessels and placed them beneath her wounds, beside her torn clothing.
“I hope you can drink a bit more of my blood…”
“I know.”
The vials quickly filled, she drank deeply, then he replaced them with new containers.
“I made this resolve eleven years ago.”
Perhaps she could drink no more, or perhaps her wounds had ceased to bleed; Helm placed the two remaining potions from Loft 101 into the young girl’s hands, then turned and walked into the encroaching darkness.
He recalled that long night eleven years ago, also within this very forest.
‘Was this his way of repaying Solis Abbey a debt?’
Standing before the encroaching shadows, he cast a final glance back: the unconscious white-haired nun, the severely wounded blonde doctor, the fiercely burning bonfire…
The images sharpened, as if intending to etch themselves permanently into his mind.
“It’s time.”
Resolutely, he faced the shadows once more.
“It’s time for you to taste this grand gift!”
He ran wildly, his steps unceasing.
When resistance slowed him, he hacked a path open with his dagger.
A tearing, agonizing pain surged through his feet.
Still, he did not stop.
Until it spread throughout his entire body.
And then, he felt no pain at all.
He heard only the continuous explosions of flesh around him, and from farther away, like a rhythmic song.
When the song concluded.
All was silent.
He could no longer feel his body, nor his presence in this world.
****
With her last reserves of strength, Callan rolled onto her side, positioning her injured half downwards, and used her right hand to draw the young girl’s beautiful face close to her own.
She gently stroked open the closed eyes.
There was no black film, only a stunning crimson.
‘She had never seen such beautiful eyes.’
She thought.
‘If only she could have the young girl one more time.’
It would be effortless, requiring little strength to take that soft body, and ideally, her eyes would be as beautiful and alluring then as they were now.
‘Was she being too greedy…?’
Slowly, she closed her eyes, and a contented smile graced the remaining half of her face.
‘Let greed be greed, then.’
‘To die with a dream, that wasn’t so bad.’