9th Grade Civil Servant In Another World Chapter 85 - Treasure Chest (2)

“The condition is serious.”

When the blood-stained tunic was removed, drops of blood pattered down.

Daniel quickly took off his own tunic and laid it on the cold sand before placing Namir down.

This much was actually a miracle. He had been struck by the dragon’s tail and sent flying through the air. Thanks to Fael’s barrier, it ended with just torn flesh, but otherwise his spine would have been broken and he would have died.

While he examined Namir’s condition, Fael ran around gathering the scattered people.

“All the luggage seems to be safe.”

One of the female workers came over carrying pouches and said.

“The camels are nothing but bones now.”

The dragon had devoured all the camels, but hadn’t touched the tents and bags the group had dropped while fleeing.

A moment later, Namir was moved inside a tent where a fire had been lit.

They cleaned his wounds with clean water and gave him first aid, but there was nothing they could do about his feverish groaning.

“His back is severely torn. Scarring is inevitable, and there might be aftereffects. I gave him antibiotics for now, but… Without a healer, this is serious.”

Daniel said anxiously.

Thanks to knowledge he’d picked up over Richard’s shoulder, he could make a diagnosis. Anyway, Namir’s wounds were obviously serious, and anyone with common sense would reach the same conclusion.

“This is serious indeed.”

Fael’s complexion was deathly pale as he replied calmly.

“I’ve done everything I can for now.”

Now they could only trust in Namir’s recovery.

The workers checked each other’s condition by lamplight.

Fortunately, it was only Namir who was seriously injured. Everyone else had just minor bruises or scrapes.

They arranged to take turns keeping watch and went into the tents to sleep.

‘What if the dragon comes back?’

Even with his eyes closed in his sleeping bag, Daniel’s head was spinning. It was the fear that came after the excitement following such a tremendous event had subsided.

Of course, if Oscar had been with them, he would have told them,

“Twenty camels are enough to satisfy a dragon awakening from hibernation. If that hadn’t been the case, it would have eaten the humans too before leaving. There are no reported cases of a dragon returning after leaving its winter sleeping place once.”

But since no one in the group was that knowledgeable about dragons, everyone slept fitfully, terrified and alert.

***

They stayed at that quiet beach for exactly five days.

Namir couldn’t open his eyes due to high fever, so they had to force his mouth open to push in fever reducers and make him swallow water and date juice.

“Richard is amazing. And the nurses too.”

Nursing was hard labor. Daniel collapsed in complete exhaustion.

The third night.

While Daniel was briefly getting some sleep, Fael, who had been dozing, woke up to whispering, muttering sounds.

“Cough! Huk, sorry, huk!”

“Namir? Are you conscious?”

When he approached on his knees, Namir’s eyes, which had been unable to focus and spinning around, turned toward him.

“Brother?”

He tried to sit up but had to lie back down with a groan when he saw his bandaged torso.

“Don’t move carelessly.”

Fael supported the water pouch. After wetting his throat and seeming to calm down for a moment, Namir quietly muttered.

“It was because of me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I insisted on performing the ritual, so that’s why the dragon woke up. It was a beach that had been abandoned for hundreds of years, and dragons look for quiet, safe areas when hibernating, and I knew all that. I should have suspected there might be a dragon sleeping there. Of course it woke up when we were making noise on top of the dragon’s body.”

Namir gave a rambling confession, sometimes coughing or gasping, and even choking up.

Fael quietly shook his head.

“It was an accident no one could have predicted. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

“But—”

“If you’re sorry, get better quickly. We can only go back when you recover.”

Namir eventually closed his eyes again and drifted off to sleep.

‘What a fool.’

In Fael’s eyes, Namir was just an ignorant child.

He would rage about hating this world and curse his brother to die. But in reality, he was full of curiosity about the world and couldn’t decisively cut off relationships, suffering over it.

A pitiful fool wandering endlessly.

Fael had always thought it was all their father’s fault.

But now, suddenly, this realization struck him.

‘Did this child become twisted because I left the village?’

On a night when jackal cries could be heard in the distance, he quietly fell into contemplation.

“I’m truly sorry…”

As soon as Namir regained consciousness, he gathered everyone and apologized first.

“Don’t overdo it. Your wounds might get worse.”

When he groaned and bowed his head deeply, Fael pressed his forehead and made him lie down.

Of course, since it was an unfortunate accident, no one blamed Namir. Instead, they were too busy worrying about what lay ahead.

“What should we do?”

“Hmm…”

Daniel and Fael sat with their heads together, lost in thought.

“Realistically speaking, it would be better to start walking back as soon as possible.”

Although they had saved their lives for now, losing all their camels—their means of transportation—was a big problem.

Instead of being eaten by a dragon, they might die wandering the desert.

“We have enough water and food. But just from simple calculations, it will take at least a month and a half to get back to the village. And we’ll have to move even more slowly considering Namir.”

“We can’t… send a letter.”

It would be good to send a messenger to the Fa tribe’s village to request help, but asking someone to run alone on a path that would be difficult even for everyone sticking together was unreasonable.

“It can’t be helped. It’s best to depart before we consume more food.”

Fael reached a conclusion.

The next day, the group set off eastward. Namir was carried swaying on a stretcher made from sleeping bags.

***

The capital of the ancient Elf Kingdom, ‘Asma.’

It was a city that flourished when elves lived under the blessing of the great forest.

In the center of the city stood a giant tree, and houses were built among beautifully grown vines. The houses were naturally buried in the forest, making them hard to find even with careful observation unless you were an elf.

The elves raised livestock, gathered fruits and mushrooms, occasionally traded with humans, and used magic to obtain flower nectar and spices.

That was already over a thousand years ago.

The forest disappeared, and the elves who lived depending on the forest also disappeared.

Originally, forests don’t have great population-supporting capacity. Since they didn’t farm on a large scale like humans, the Elf Kingdom’s population was inevitably much smaller than the continent’s humans.

Naturally, it was insufficient to stop the wave of refugees who came fleeing from war.

The refugee groups massacred the elves who stood in their way in order to burn the forest and create fields.

The elves resisted to the end, but their strength was weak, and the humans who had been driven to the edge of the continent finally destroyed even the capital Asma.

It seemed the masters of the great forest would change…

Whether it was because they had set too many fires or due to climate change, within less than a hundred years the forest became desert and the humans left the barren land.

“Kruger claimed in his writings that elves were defeated because their civilization developed slowly.”

“What?! After I went to the trouble of telling you!”

“Daniel, it’s better not to excite Namir.”

“Ah, sorry. I wanted to say he was wrong. I mean, he maliciously interpreted the fact that their development took different directions. But in the end, even the humans had to leave, driven out by natural disasters, so there were no winners, right?”

“That’s a strange conclusion.”

Their pace was neither fast nor slow.

They moved at dawn and during the night before the sandy ground heated up, and Namir, carried on the stretcher, constantly chattered about old legends and folktales.

‘Lucas would have giggled and said his mouth was just floating around.’

Daniel chuckled.

They arrived at Asma in three days like that…

“Wh-what’s that!”

“This can’t be!”

“Th-that thing, it’s the same one, right?!”

“It looks like it!”

A giant creature was crouched at the entrance to Asma.

As fate would have it, the red dragon they had awakened had made this place its nest.

***

Before them was a rugged canyon terrain. Huge cliffs stretched on both sides of the path.

Following that narrow path would lead to the sunken basin where Asma was said to have been located.

A thousand years ago, the canyon was surely all covered with trees, secretly hiding the city entrance and the connecting paths.

But now everything was clearly visible. They had also passed through this path and the ruins just recently.

The problem was that the canyon was too huge and steep to climb over or go around.

In other words, as long as that dragon was blocking the way, they absolutely couldn’t cross to the other side!

“Argh, what suffering is this for waking up a dragon!”

Namir silently wailed.

“If I carry everyone one by one with flight magic, no, it’s too far for that.”

Fael fell into thought.

“It hasn’t discovered us, has it?”

“Probably not? Since there’s quite a distance.”

“Then let’s slowly back away.”

Following Fael’s words, the group hid near the canyon entrance.

“Won’t it leave eventually? That thing has to move if it wants to hunt.”

Following Daniel’s suggestion, they stayed in the gaps between giant rocks and waited for the dragon to move.

For three days.

“Ah, when is that thing going to move?! Is it going back to sleep because we woke it up from its nap?!”

“No, its eyes are open though.”

If Oscar had been there, he would have told them,

“Dragons that wake from hibernation make new nests and wait for mates after filling their bellies!”

The workers, exhausted from the endless wait, began spouting crazy talk.

“Isn’t there a way to chase it away? There must be something even dragons fear.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“Too dangerous.”

“Ah, that sounds like a good idea!”

Namir chimed in.

“The great forest was once called the dragons’ homeland, right? Our ancestors even raised dragons…”

The young man’s eyes began to sparkle.

***

When the great forest was still intact.

The ancient elves worshipped dragons.

They offered sacrifices and borrowed their power to control the violent beasts of the forest.

Dragons were born with superior intelligence and special abilities, and were considered magical blessed creatures and divine beasts sent down by the god Ela for the elves.

Under the reign of Khalid II, the kingdom served a powerful red dragon named ‘Tan.’

Tan was truly the royal family’s guardian deity, having lent his power to kings for hundreds of years.

Around that time, the continent was in turmoil.

After the empire fell, humans constantly waged war and gradually encroached on elven territory.

As the weather grew gradually colder each year, the forest trees died and the people were agitated, calling it divine punishment.

The king proclaimed he would hold a grand ceremony to appease the people. After completing the ceremony, he said he would use the dragon’s power to sweep away the humans.

It was obviously a reckless decision. But the elves, who had already been suffering from famine for several years, didn’t have the luxury of making better judgments.

They believed that driving out the humans would return them to the kingdom’s prosperous days, to the peaceful times.

They wanted war.

The ceremony began.

Splendidly adorned shamans chanted spells and climbed the altar to pray to the god Ela for blessings.

But an accident happened in an instant.

Tan broke his restraints with tremendous power, roared, and charged straight at the king, swallowing him in one bite.

What followed was truly a massacre. He ate dozens of fleeing royals alive.

After finishing his feast, Tan spread his wings and flew away.

He never showed himself again.

***

“That’s what happened.”

Namir closed the book.

The people who had been quietly listening to the story released the breath they’d been holding.

“So the Elf Kingdom was destroyed because of a dragon?”

When Daniel asked in bewilderment, Namir nodded.

“It was probably the decisive blow? They were already precarious due to human invasion and climate change, but this incident hastened their downfall.”

“So dragon worship disappeared after that.”

That was Fael’s deduction.

“Of course. I’ve always thought it wasn’t worship but just taming from the beginning. It might have just been rule by fear. With a dragon’s power, anyone would have no choice but to submit.”

Namir began passionately arguing about the system of the later Elf Kingdom.

“But why did the dragon suddenly eat people?”

“Hmm, the reason isn’t written here. But I can guess. Listen, the people sacrificed in the ritual had two things in common. They were royalty, and they were mages. And there happens to be someone here who fits those conditions.”

Namir pointed at his brother.

“You mean, me?”

Fael looked somewhat bewildered.

“Right. If we just sacrifice you, we can all comfortably pass through that path! Come on, go get eaten!”

Everyone’s expressions filled with dismay, but only Namir was very serious.

“Brother, sacrifice yourself for us!”

“Absolutely not.”