Because He’s My Partner

Orphe ran over to Kikori, who had collapsed and fallen.

Blood. There was so much blood.

It was not just what he had vomited.

Blood was flowing from all over his body.

Of course it was. That was not an amount of mana any normal living creature could handle.

Even if Kikori had become a dragon, if his mana capacity had not changed…

Then it only meant he had been given power beyond his means.

That Dragon Breath was the prime example.

If he fired something like that, of course the recoil would leave him like this.

“You idiot…! I told you I’d kill you if you died!”

Orphe desperately cast Heal.

But she could not tell how effective it was.

“He ‘became’ a dragon…!? A coronation!? What idiot did something like that to you!?”

There was no way he could endure it.

Kikori had been a dragon-like human.

She would not let anyone say that whoever had given the power of the strongest creature to something like that had not understood what would happen.

The strongest power in a weak body. Just using it was like sprinting full speed toward death.

But now, he had become able to use it.

Then he had no choice but to use the Dragon Crown and “adapt.”

Just as each dragon was one of a kind, worthy of wielding its own power.

Kikori too had to become that.

If he could not… Kikori would die.

“Damn it… damn it, damn iiiit! Yes, I know! I know exactly what kind of bastard could do something like that!”

Someone who could turn another into a “dragon.” If anyone could do something that outrageous… it could only be the god called the Dragon God.

It had probably interfered precisely because Kikori had possessed an incomplete Dragon Crown… but this was the result.

Of course, there had probably been no other way for Kikori to survive.

Kikori had no choice but to become a dragon.

So, normally, what the Dragon God had done would have been a benevolent blessing.

Kikori had won and survived. Orphe had survived too. The fairies’ enemy had been avenged.

If this were a story, it would be an unquestionable “happily ever after.”

But even so, Orphe thought this.

“To hell with heroic tales! This guy is my partner!”

She mobilized all the mana inside her body and cast Heal.

As long as his body recovered, he could live for now.

So she poured in mana, determined to keep him alive no matter what.

“I won’t let this end with him dead and call it happy! Hurry up and wake up already!”

The light of Heal was absorbed into Kikori.

However, that light gradually began to weaken.

“Kuh…! Uuuugh…! Like I’d loooose…!”

Even so, Orphe squeezed out her mana.

“It’s Orphe!”

“It really is!”

“The Dragonewt is here too!”

Without turning toward the voices she heard, Orphe shouted.

“Help me! We’re healing him! Hurry!”

“Okaaay.”

“He’s our savior, after all.”

“Guess we have no choice.”

The fairies that flew over cast all kinds of magic on him, and once Orphe confirmed that Kikori had regained steady breathing, she unsteadily collapsed onto his chest.

“I-I can’t anymore… I’m the one who’s done for. How many of you are here? Can you use teleportation magic?”

“We can, but—”

“But we came here to kill the wyvern.”

“We killed it ourselves. I’ll explain later.”

At Orphe’s words, filled with the feeling of “hurry up,” the fairies looked at one another, then gathered the other fairies and chanted some kind of spell.

In the middle of that, one fairy noticed something like a gigantic jewel and picked it up.

Immediately after that, the fairies and Kikori vanished in an instant.

And what remained afterward was… absolutely nothing.