The three of them had been suffering so much they hadn't slept properly in days — and in the end they dropped off by a method not one of them could have predicted. When Jhin and Kyaru came back from the bath and found all three collapsed in the doorway, they didn't know whether to laugh or groan.
After carrying each of them back to her own room, Jhin left a small knot of wind elementals behind to slowly disperse the smell, then shut the door and went off with Kyaru to sleep in their own bedroom.
The next morning, when all five members of the Gourmet Edifice were lined up neatly in the living room, Jhin and Kyaru still hadn't worked out how to greet them. Megumin and Kokkoro struck first, walking straight up to Kyaru, hooking an arm each and marching her off toward the bathroom.
"Huh? Wh-what are you two doing!?"
"Say something, at least! Jhin, save me!"
Jhin drew a cross in front of his chest. "May the Buddha have mercy. Go in peace, Kyaru."
"M-morning~" Pecorine's greeting came out about half an octave off-key.
"Uh. Morning, Pecorine." Even someone as thick-skinned as Jhin felt his face heat up. Still, she'd made the first move, so the least he could do was answer. "What are we eating?"
The moment he stepped toward her, Pecorine backed up several paces, her eyes darting everywhere while her hands made vague shapes in the air. "B-breakfast, obviously, is… um… how about sandwiches? Right, sandwiches are great, we've still got bread left from last time, mm-hmm, that's a really good idea."
Are you seriously backing away from me?
Jhin knew he had no right to say that out loud, so he headed briskly into the kitchen and started on breakfast. "Sandwiches it is, then. I happen to have some meat I brought back from the Red Dragon Volcano."
"Ah… mm. I'm looking forward to it." Having said that, Pecorine just stood there watching him blankly. Any other morning she'd have rolled up her sleeves and bounced over to help long ago.
But three days and three nights of that, plus the scene that had shattered her pure young heart, left her too rattled to go anywhere near him. It wasn't that she disliked him. It was more that getting close made her feel like a little white rabbit facing a big grey wolf — the kind of nerves that made it impossible to do anything right.
In the bathroom, the other two had Kyaru stripped bare in a matter of seconds. She crouched in the corner with her arms wrapped around herself, face burning. "I already told you, I'm fine. Why won't you believe me?"
"How are we supposed to take your word for it! You got skewered by that… that thing for three days and three nights." Megumin yanked her arms away from her body, eyes sweeping over her like a pair of scanning lasers.
"Mm-hmm, mm-hmm." Kokkoro nodded along vigorously — and immediately caught two very bewildered stares.
The pair of them knew because they'd each had firsthand contact. So how did she know?
Don't tell me this quiet, unassuming elven guide was already miles ahead of them both?
"Achoo!" In the kitchen, Jhin sneezed over the breakfast.
After a thorough inspection, Megumin and Kokkoro arrived at a stunning conclusion: there was genuinely not a single thing wrong with Kyaru's body.
"I'm not trying to be rude, but… he really didn't put a hole through your stomach and then patch you up with that Blade of Resurrection trick?"
"Of course not."
"Th-then you never hung by a thread and had to be resuscitated either?"
"No… I think?" On that point Kyaru wasn't entirely sure. Honestly, she'd spent half the time in a haze, her head churned into paste, reacting to Jhin's movements purely on instinct. She barely remembered any of it.
Watching her like that, Megumin — who had believed she was fully prepared — felt her nerve start to wobble.
Maybe… maybe I should wait a bit longer. Kyaru's already like this with him, so it's not as if he'll pounce on me out of nowhere. And I really don't want to be reduced to a haze.
The three of them came out of the bathroom. Pecorine, who had been sitting across from Jhin as though the chair were full of needles, looked up like a drowning woman spotting a rope, and her whole body loosened. Then she noticed a small, delicate bell hanging at Kyaru's collar that she'd never seen before, and asked curiously, "Kyaru, that bell of yours is…"
"Oh, this?" Kyaru pinched the smooth brass bell between thumb and forefinger and rubbed it gently. "House cats all wear bells, don't they."
Her meaning was clear enough: the Gourmet Edifice was her home from now on, and her keeper was, without question, Jhin.
"It's pretty."
"Thanks."
After breakfast, Jhin took out the two remaining bottles of dragon's blood, which drew everyone's attention at once. Megumin got there first, eyes blazing with excitement as she grabbed his shoulders and shook him. "That enormous magic, that unique color — that's dragon's blood, isn't it! It has to be dragon's blood!"
"It is. I just don't know what else it's good for."
As an elf, Kokkoro sensed more than Megumin did. The blood held not only a vast reserve of magic but an overwhelmingly powerful life force as well, so concentrated that for a moment she thought an ancient elven tree was standing right in front of her.
"Master… how exactly did you obtain this dragon's blood?"
"If I had to put it into words — it gave it to me?"
Kyaru saw every head turn her way and waved both hands. "Don't look at me, I was unconscious. I don't know anything. All I know is he went to the Red Dragon Volcano because of that mutated Red Dragon that's been alive for a thousand years."
"Letishi!!??" Kokkoro's shriek nearly lifted the roof off the house. Her eyes brimmed over as she turned to Jhin. "Master… you went to face the lord of the volcano… for my sake?"
"Don't cry, don't cry. I came back in one piece with Kyaru and the blood, didn't I?" He hadn't expected the thing he'd been keeping quiet to come tumbling out of Kyaru's mouth, and he shot her a discreet, long-suffering look.
Eager to make up for it, Kyaru hurried to change the subject. "An-anyway, does how he got it have anything to do with how it's used?"
"Dragon's blood carries the dragon's own will. If it doesn't acknowledge you, this happens." As she spoke, Kokkoro reached a small hand toward the bottle. Before she even touched it, the phantom of an enormous dragon surged into the air above them and let out a warning roar, and a formless pressure flooded the entire living room.
Jhin snatched the bottle up. The phantom vanished at once, and the pressure went with it.
"Only someone it acknowledges can use dragon's blood. And that golden one… I suspect that's the purest blood, taken from the dragon's heart?"
"You're right."
"Then Master should drink the pure dragon's blood. Ordinary dragon's blood isn't worth a ten-thousandth of it."
Megumin was practically drooling. "It's that terrifying?"
"It's the blood of the lord of the volcano… if anything, I'm being conservative."
"How on earth did you talk a Red Dragon that scary into it? Don't tell me it was female?" Megumin was now seriously entertaining the possibility that Jhin had gone off and become a dragon rider.
"Don't let your imagination run wild." Jhin rapped her lightly on the head, then tipped his head back and drained the pure dragon's blood in one go.
The blood had no coppery tang at all — it was more like drinking some kind of energy drink. A faint red glow began to rise from his skin.
____
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