Chapter 27: Aftermath
Mana.
The lifeblood of this magical world. Just as oxygen kept humans alive, the mana that flowed throughout Erani kept nature alive. Without mana, there was no life. The trees would wilt and the grass would brown. Even the soil below would blacken.
The dragon, a magical creature that thrives closest to nature. Magic and nature would cease to exist. Should mana disappear from this world, they would be simply rendered vicious beasts if alive at all.
The two dragons were staring in disbelief and dread at the blackened soil that the corruption had left behind as it dug a tunnel to escape. A scowl had appeared on Emre's face while Idris's simply looked stoic and serious. Just another reason to put themselves at risk to kill dark creatures.
Shards of dead soil were still stuck in their skin, and Emre's upper shoulder was still in pain from the dark beam. Finally, he pulled away from the hole and glanced up to Idris. He was still staring into the tunnel with that stoic look.
"Let's move away a bit." Emre said.
"If dark creature magic takes away mana…" Idris trailed off.
"Let's think about it after we're not bleeding."
Idris finally pulled his eyes away from the tunnel to look up at Emre. He gave a small nod and the two of them began to move to a spot that wasn't ravaged by battle. Emre ended up glancing toward where the soldiers were recovering from the many things that had just occurred.
For now, he would ignore them. Sitting down not too far from the broken dome, Emre looked at the several black shards sticking out from their bodies. They weren't too large, nor were they small. They were large enough for Emre to clasp his hand around like a hilt.
"Okay, we're going to need to pull the spikes out first…" Emre muttered as he examined the number of shards sticking out of Idris's shoulder and side.
"Do yourself first." Idris said, pulling back a bit.
"Idris—"
"I can't have the healer healing me when he hasn't even healed himself first." Idris interrupted. "You're more hurt than I am." His tone was stubborn.
Emre let out a sigh but nodded. Since Idris was insisting, he would do himself first. The not-so-nice part was actually pulling the spikes out. Glancing out at his body, it was mostly his right arm. He would heal his shoulder first so he could move better.
Shifting, he reached over with his hand and cast Healing Touch. With it being at level 10, the seared wound began to heal quickly. He could feel the burning sensation fading into soft warmth as the infection was eaten away and his scales repaired themselves.
With a sigh of relief, he went to the spikes now. Starting with the spike on his chest, he clasped a hand around it. Bracing himself he yanked the shard out with a wince. He quickly placed his hand on the viciously bleeding gash and healed it. It healed much easier than the sear and used less mana.
Without wasting time, he began to pull out and heal all of the spikes and shards on his body. Once he got to the last one, he finally felt his muscles loosen with relief. At least until he looked up to Idris. Idris was staring at the grass with a grimace, holding up his left leg so that he wasn't putting pressure on it.
Emre thought his expression was harsh and immediately looked at the spikes in his leg and side. He hadn't noticed it before. Why didn't he look closer? Why had he been so negligent? He hadn't been able to see it because of his black scales, but the dark iridescent scales surrounding each spike were not normal. It was a deep black that didn't reflect.
Just like the humans, the wounds were festering at a quick rate. How couldn't have Emre thought of it? Idris was not a radiant dragon. His scales couldn't fight against the corruption as Emre's could.
"Idris, why didn't you say anything!?" Emre's voice was harsh.
"I wanted you to heal yourself first." Idris answered with a pained grunt.
Emre quickly got to work, carefully pulling out the shards and healing the wounds and the corruption.
"My scales can fight against the infection." Emre explained. "I'm sorry. I should have thought of it beforehand."
Shaking his head Idris didn't say anything as Emre continued to heal each wound. With each healing, Idris relaxed more as the pain started to fade bit by bit. Emre's mana was beginning to run low, but he managed to finish healing all of the punctures. With a tired sigh, he finally relaxed a bit.
[ Healed a Dragon, gained 2500 experience ]
[ You leveled up ]
[ Gained 4 stat points ]
[ Level requirements met for new skills ]
[ Skill gained, Radiant Blade ]
[ Skill gained, Radiant Beam ]
[ Skill gained, Healing Pool ]
[ You leveled up ]
[ Gain 4 stat points ]
"Next time, you're going first." Emre snorted, once more ignoring his level-ups.
"But—" Idris started.
"No! No chance to change my mind." Emre shook his head before Idris could come up with an excuse. "If we were both injured with the same injury, you would die faster. Therefore, you're going to get healed first from now on."
"Alright…" Idris decided this wasn't worth an argument.
After a moment of relaxing because they were not in imminent danger, the two noticed the soldiers finally beginning to move again.
'They are coming to us.' Emre said with a sigh.
The humans had been observing them the whole time as they regrouped their forces. Carlowe was on his horse in the front, armor stained in black blood from killing dark creatures. They started marching toward Emre and Idris with little more than 100 some men. They had lost over half their force…
Emre stood up and Idris moved to stand beside him as the humans approached. The dragons held expressionless faces, making sure not to show anything strange to the people. Dragons were known and regal and egotistical. While Emre won't go out of his way to act too differently. He wasn't going to appear weak to these humans.
The soldiers were exhausted and standing before two massive forms of creatures known only to appear when the world was unbalanced. They were naturally nervous and fearful. It was inevitable, even if it seemed like they were on the same side.
Carlowe halted the force once he was within speaking distance. Removing his helmet, he revealed his face and held the headpiece under his arm.
"Greetings esteemed dragons. My name is Carlowe Hayes. I am a Lieutenant of the Gaia Kingdom." Carlowe let out his spiel and placed a hand at his waist as he bowed but didn't get off his horse.
'This man knows my name.' Emre informed Idris as he looked down at them.
'We can make up fake ones. Or just not give them our names.' Idris responded nonchalantly.
Sigh...
"Hello, Carlowe Hayes." Emre responded with ease.
He didn't say anything else so the Lieutenant seemed perplexed on what to say next.
"W-well, thank you very much for your aid, esteemed dragons." Carlowe stuttered out. "Do you perhaps have names that we may address you?"
Emre could tell that he was trying to not offend them. It was especially amusing since he had spoken to Carlowe before and he did not even know. His personality than had been drastically different. He was dismissive and somewhat rude to Ragan. Emre hadn't forgotten.
"Our names are unimportant. We're going to be leaving." Idris said.
He would have continued but Carlowe quickly responded.
"A-ah…! Would it be possible for some…" His voice trailed off as Emre's eyes narrowed.
"Are you asking for help?" Emre felt irritated that they had underestimated the dark creatures in the first place.
It wasn't their fault, but Emre's emotions were a bit stronger than his logic right now. Idris glanced toward Emre but didn't say anything.
"Isn't the Gaia Kingdom famed for having a strong army?" Emre then added on.
"Y-yes, we have quite a large and strong army." Carlowe responded, still unable to save face in front of them.
"Hmm? Then you should be fine, right?" Idris asked with a raised brow.
"Perhaps for a wide-scale… But unfortunately, these are the only troops here right now. Should the dark creatures come back to this village…" Carlowe seemed to not want to say it in front of his men. "Anyway, I humbly plead that these esteemed dragons stick around until more of our forces arrive."
'Let's just tell him we'll be around…' Emre said with a small glance to Idris.
Idris gave a small nod. "We will remain in the area. Should they return, we will finish what they started." He said.
Carlowe's face lit up. "Thank you so very much, esteemed dragons." He clasped his hands together with a smile.
Emre wanted to cringe away. Besides the 'esteemed' was a bit much, wasn't it? This side of Carlowe seemed terribly fake. It was like he was acting like a fool for the sake of them.
'Idris, are you able to turn invisible?' Emre asked him.
'Hm? Yes, it was one of the first spells I learned.' He answered.
Ha, as expected of a dragon, Emre supposed.
'Good. I think we should go into the forest first before we do, but we should probably go check on the others.'
'Alright…' Idris didn't seem very excited to talk to his party members.
"Then, we will be going." Emre told Carlowe.
"Of course, I do hope we meet again." The Lieutenant gave a bow with a smile still on his face.
'What a fake man.' Emre noted to Idris bitterly.
Emre and Idris turned around and began to head into the forest. The moment they were far enough inside they both turned invisible and took to the air. They headed for the clearing they had been training in originally. They remained invisible even while they transformed back into their human forms.
Emre was thankful for his Spatial Storage magic that immediately put clothes on him the moment he transformed back.
'Let's turn visible in the nearby alley.' Idris said as they began to walk into the village.
Emre was able to tell where he was due to his mana, but both of their auras were currently hidden away so no one else could detect them. They slipped into an alley and dropped their invisibility. After using so much magic, Emre felt exhausted.
He would need to continue strengthening his mana core as soon as possible. He would be rendered helpless in a long battle if his mana pool did not become stronger. Long battles would become more likely if creatures like the one they had just fought decided to gather a larger force.
While Emre didn't know why or how they were getting their forces, he knew it was nothing good.
'What are we supposed to tell them?' Idris asked as they started out of the alleyway.
'I'm not sure… I think we should just answer the questions we can.' Emre responded with furrowed brows.
'What if they ask about our magic? Holy magic isn't easy to make excuses for.'
'We can tell them that we won't answer some of their questions.'
'Will they accept that?'
'They will have to. I'm not about to go spouting off about Gods. Even I don't know why exactly Tirian gave me radiant magic.'
'So you don't want to tell them about Tirian and Animor's involvement?'
'No, I don't think we should mix up people who don't need to be mixed up.'
'How much does Ragan know?'
'He knew that I was a dragon, that I used radiant magic, and that I knew a bit about the dark creatures. That's all. He didn't really ask questions.'
Idris nodded as they walked into the main plaza finally. There were a few small dead dark creatures littered around. Villagers had started to come out of hiding and were cleaning up a bit. Off toward the tavern, there was a small group of ragged-looking people leaning against the building.
It was their group. When they noticed Emre and Idris walking toward them, they started to stand up with expectant-looking eyes. Ragan stepped forward first with a small smile.
"Are you two okay?" He asked, looking them up and down.
They didn't look injured because Emre had healed them. Ragan knew this but he figured that he would ask anyway. They had barely seen anything of the dragon's battle. Both of them looked tired and were probably just as exhausted as the group was.
"Naturally." Emre responded. "Thank you for keeping the village safe while we ran off."
"No more bigger corruptions showed up. Just small fries that managed to break through the soldiers."
Ragan had known Emre, who was nodding at his words, was a dragon so speaking to him was quite normal. The others behind him, however, were obviously restless. Two dragons was simply too astonishing to not want to ask questions. It was like they were looking at two different people than the ones they had known.
"We're not sure if the hoard will come back so we'll be staying until reinforcements arrive." Emre let him know.
Ragan hesitated before he responded. "Where will you be going?"
"I'm not sure yet." Emre looked to Idris. "We'll have to talk about it."
Emre wanted to go to the capital to get answers from Tirian. But he also wanted to stick around and protect the innocents. He would need to talk to Idris about what they should do and what they end up finding is more important. If there were soldiers here, Emre wouldn't be as worried though if they did end up leaving for the capital.
Regardless, it was one of the many topics that he and Idris would need to think about later. First, they would have to deal with this.
"Is anyone injured?" Emre then turned to the party.
"Given that it was just small fry, I treated any injuries with my herbs, Emre." Ragan informed. "You already look like crap. You don't need to go using more mana."
"Yes, you two should rest before anything." Gerrar stepped forward with a small smile.
To be honest, it was a nice idea. Just thinking about laying down in a bed made his limbs feel weaker.
"A nap sounds great." Ragan agreed with a nod. "We all fought hard. A well-earned nap is deserved right now."
With no opposition, they entered the tavern without many more words. Idris hung back to talk to Conin, but it was only a moment as they headed up the stairs. They each headed to their respective rooms, and without much more thought, passed out.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone