CH 57

I gasp.

I’m at a loss for words.

“A-are you all right?”

Leila is the first to come to her senses.

Her words also bring me back, and I follow her.

What we see are two women with deathly pale faces, who are struggling to even breathe.

Their bodies are covered in blood, and it hurts to even look at them. It looks like after it assaulted them, it crushed the eyes of one of them.

Leila, who was approaching them, sees this, and stops dead in her tracks. Her outstretched hand stops too.

“Leila, please move aside.”

I approach the two women and cast Heal on both.

Did we make it in time?

Their wounds heal quickly, but they don’t really react. Did they lose too much blood?

If the blood splashed all around this room is all theirs, they lost a lot.

I can heal wounds with Heal, but that doesn’t bring back lost blood.

What do I do?

I look at Leila, and she’s crying while holding their hands and praying.

Their breathing isn’t stabilizing, and it’s getting weaker.

I…

Call out to Alchemy.

I look through the list of transmutable items, and find something.

I take two dead orcs out of the Item Box.

Leila looks surprised by this sudden development. She’s about to say something, but I have to ignore it and hurry.

I carve their bodies and retrieve their magic stones.

The materials I need are magic stones and blood. At first I worry about blood types and stuff like that, but there are universal hematopoietics too, so I don’t think that’s a problem. The description doesn’t mention anything like blood types either.

I drip my own blood into a magic stone, and infuse it with magic energy. After doing the same to the other, I feel like I’m the one who’s about to collapse from anemia.

I manage to stay on my feet, and hand one of the completed items to Leila.

“Have one of them drink this.”

Normally, it should be injected or transfused, but having them drink it should be fine. As for the taste… I don’t know about that, but I wouldn’t want to drink it. They’ll just have to bear with it.

I hold one of the women, and place the vial near her mouth before I start pouring.

I do it slowly, being careful not to make her choke.

By the time the hematopoietic in the vial is half gone, color starts to return to her face. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I feel like her breathing is stabilizing too.

After being very careful, I manage to have her drink the whole thing. It looks like Leila is done too.

“What was that!?”

Leila yells as I put away the dead orcs.

Hey… They’re resting. Let’s be quiet.

“What?”

“Hum, how you made that thing that looked like a potion. And the thing itself too.”

That’s a weird way to put it, but I get it.

“The answer to the first question is alchemy. And what I made were hematopoietics.”

“Alchemy? Hematopoietics?”

“…Think of it as something to replenish lost blood. Haven’t you seen alchemy before?”

Not that I’ve seen other people use alchemy either.

“I-I see. I didn’t understand because it was different from the way an alchemist I know does it.”

So my method really isn’t ordinary.

If she asks me to tell her more about it, I’ll have to say that’s just the way I was taught.

“Let’s just take them out of here for now. Can you wake them up?”

“They’re fast asleep, so I don’t think so.”

“Then we have to carry them. It’d be better to take it easy, but we’re in trouble if the orcs that left return.”

From what I can see on Map, we should be fine, but we would be in trouble if they show up while the two sleep. Especially if they blocked the exit.

“Yes, we should get away from the cave.”

It’s a good thing neither woman is big.

We head for the exit through the same path we took when we came here.

“Sora, can you close this hole?

It’s also to destroy the place where the orcs will come back to, but apparently monsters have a tendency to make places like caves their lairs, so leaving them be is dangerous.

I use Earth Magic to destroy the entrance, and make sure they can’t dig their way in.

Afterwards we take a break, and about an hour later we head back to the village.

“Are you all right?”

“I-I am fine.”

She doesn’t look fine.

“Let’s end it here for today. I’m sure you’re tired too. We’d be in trouble if you pushed yourself too much and couldn’t walk any more.”

Not to mention that she’s carrying a woman on her back through the forest, and she was tired before we began. It’s a wonder she made it this far.

I flatten the ground with Earth Magic, and start getting ready to camp.

Leila looks kind of astonished, but I ignore it.

I spread a sheet on the ground, and we lay the two women on it.

While I’m at it, I heat up a pot and start making a simple soup. I haven’t drained the blood yet, so I can’t use orc meat, but I use the wolf meat and vegetables I have left. Should I make it taste like consommé? I’ve been experimenting with seasonings every day, but it’s still far from what I want.

“Eat a little and sleep. We’ll keep walking after that.”

“Very well. But we should take turns keeping watch.”

I’m sure her stamina is reaching its limit. She doesn’t argue with what I said, but she’s worried about monsters attacking. It makes sense, we are camping in a forest after all.

“I have monster repellent, so I’ll use that. Let’s just rest for now.”

To be honest, I’m still tired from fighting too. I lost quite a bit of blood too. I need to replenish my nutrients and rest in preparation for tomorrow.

I check our surroundings with Map.

The orcs that left have almost reached the wagons, but haven’t gotten there yet. I’m sure they’re planning to attack.

The group that went to Hikari and the others isn’t moving. They’re pretty close to the village, but obviously they can’t just walk in.

As I’m thinking about this, I start hearing the sound of someone sleeping.

It was a nerve-racking day. Leila was assaulted by drowsiness the moment she laid down. I put a sheet over her, and go to sleep too.