‘Wait, Bisby? What do you mean it’s my turn? Haven’t I been doing everything since earlier?’

Hey, look here. Rukna called for Bisby, but the sacred sword that had returned to the necklace didn’t answer.

Rukna had no choice but to draw the ordinary sword tucked at her waist.

“Hahaha! Seeing the sacred sword disappear, it seems you still don’t know how to properly handle it. Why don’t you use magic like a true Golden then?”

Oh my, oh my. Professor Todley pretended to be surprised while covering his mouth with one hand.

“I forgot you were adopted. Not even half-blooded, but completely rootless.”

Professor Todley insulted Rukna’s background while tapping the spider web.

Each time he did, baby spiders jumped and rushed at Rukna.

They may have been called baby monsters, but their size was almost as tall as Rukna.

Rukna swung her sword as she had practiced every dawn during special training.

The monster’s body split in half, and green bodily fluids splattered everywhere.

Kyaak! Kak!

‘One, two, four, seven…!’

Her arms trembled as she cut down the monsters rushing at her from all directions.

But she couldn’t let her guard down. If she was careless for even a moment, she felt she would be immediately devoured by the baby monsters.

To make matters worse, the airship, with its broken engine swaying left and right, made it difficult for Rukna to even stand properly.

“Haha, you’re better than I thought, Rukna Golden. But you won’t last much longer? Come here, my Queen Tarantula!”

The giant monster that had been destroying the beacon tower jumped at its master’s call and landed right in front of Rukna.

It stretched out its legs, knocking away the sword Rukna was holding, and tried to swallow her in one bite.

“Ugh!”

Rukna rolled to the side, avoiding the terrifying pincers that could even cut through stone pillars.

Through her tilted vision, she saw countless baby spiders rushing to tear her body apart.

‘Hey, Bisby! Come out now! I’m really going to die at this rate!’

“Kyok, kyun, kyun!”

What she heard then was not Bisby’s alert, but the cry of a bird.

The griffin, which had been waiting at the rear of the airship and flown to the engine room, struck away the swarm of spiders rushing at Rukna with its front paws and spread its huge wings to protect her.

“Mongsil! Did you come to save me?”

“Kyun!”

“Alright, this is enough to properly repay your kindness, our Mongsil.”

Rukna used her sword to prop herself up, then immediately rushed towards Professor Todley.

The professor drew a gun from his waist and aimed it at Rukna. A gun instead of a sword, how typical of a dwarf.

Professor Todley repeatedly pulled the trigger at Rukna.

As if he hadn’t practiced shooting regularly, his gun-holding posture was a mess from the start, and his aim was terribly shaky due to the recoil.

‘A dwarf who secretly practiced black magic and was full of self-importance wouldn’t be thorough with the basics.’

Bang! Most of the bullets missed Rukna by a wide margin, but unfortunately, one of the randomly fired bullets grazed her side as it passed.

Ugh, Rukna staggered from the pain of her flesh being torn, but she quickly regained her balance and swung her sword at the professor again.

“You think you can beat me!”

Expecting the sword tip to come towards him, Professor Todley rolled his protruding belly to the side to dodge.

In doing so, he hit a hot metal pipe and screamed, “Aaaagh!”

But contrary to the professor’s expectation, Rukna’s sword tip was aimed at the spider web.

She began to cut through the core spider web, as thick as a rope, from which the professor had been issuing commands to the Queen Tarantula.

“Ah, no!”

“Looks like I hit the right spot.”

Snap. As soon as the thick string was cut, the thin spider webs that had spread out in all directions from there began to sag and sink like a net.

Kya! Kya! The Queen Tarantula made aggressive noises while moving its body left and right.

It felt threatened as the string connecting it to its master was cut.

Eight angry eyes discovered Rukna, who had cut the spider web, and the spider rushed straight at her.

The griffin attacked the Queen Tarantula with its claws, but it grabbed the griffin’s ankle and threw it far away before approaching Rukna.

‘Bisby, come out now. I can’t do this anymore.’

The gunshot wound on her side seemed deeper than she thought, and her strength was rapidly draining.

Even the sword in her hand felt heavy as she desperately called for the sacred sword.

“Step back, Rukna.”

Matian’s voice quickly brushed past Rukna’s ear.

Although the sound was low and calm, it clearly stuck in her eardrum, and her body moved to step back before her head could even give the order.

Her vision, which had been filled with disgusting monsters, now captured his back view as he ran with his coat tails fluttering.

For a very brief moment, Rukna felt as if only the two of them remained in this space.

“Kieek!”

And then came the death cry.

When she came to her senses again, the giant Queen Tarantula had been cleanly decapitated and was spurting green blood from its severed surface.

Matian, who had been riding on the monster’s body, was frowning as he looked down at the sticky spider fluid that had gotten on his clothes before he could avoid it.

‘How could someone who fights so well have been so powerless in the future?’

Rukna stared as if mesmerized at Matian, who was leisurely standing amidst the dwarves busy cleaning up the scene, before coming to her senses.

‘Oh no, this isn’t the time for this. Professor Todley!’

Distracted by other things, she had almost missed the most important thing.

Rukna quickly looked towards where the professor had rolled over.

As expected, the professor was crawling under the metal pipes, intending to secretly escape from the engine room.

Rukna jumped over the intricately woven pipes like a squirrel and caught up with the professor.

“You can’t just leave after causing all this trouble, Professor.”

And as she jumped down, she struck the professor’s back with her scabbard.

Thwack! The broad side of the scabbard hit the professor’s back like a whip.

“Kugh!”

The professor convulsed greatly and collapsed.

Rukna bound the professor’s hands with the decorative cord from her cadet uniform and then sat down on the floor with a thump.

‘It’s over.’

A long sigh of relief escaped from Rukna’s lips.

Soon, the dwarf air force, after clearing the entrance, confirmed the smelting flames and arrested Professor Todley, while the dwarf mechanics who had been holding back began to repair the damaged engine pipes one by one.

‘I’m tired.’

It hadn’t been this hard during the last muster, but now her body felt as heavy as if she had inhaled sleeping gas.

Rukna sat with her knees up and slowly blinked with her forehead resting on her knees.

She vaguely saw a pair of long legs walking towards her.

“Wake up, Rukna Golden.”

Matian shook Rukna’s hunched shoulders.

‘I want to wake up too. But what can I do when I’m so tired.’

Moreover, hearing his voice strangely made her eyelids even heavier. Was it a sense of relief?

“You can’t fall asleep here. Damn, did you get poisoned by the gas leaking from the broken engine?”

Matian shouted something to a passing dwarf, and when the dwarf brought a water bottle, he put it to Rukna’s lips.

“Drink.”

But the exhausted Rukna couldn’t even open her mouth.

Matian forcibly wedged the bottle’s mouth between Rukna’s tightly closed lips.

“Wake up and drink.”

‘I want to drink too, but I can’t move, you jerk.’

She was just sleepy. It felt like if she fell asleep now, she would be very comfortable.

Matian supported Rukna’s face as it was about to fall to the side and gritted his teeth.

“I said wake up properly in front of me, Rukna Golden.”

Rukna found it amusing how Matian’s tone warned her as if she were more dangerous than the tarantula.

But the corners of her weakened mouth didn’t lift even a little.

All Rukna could do was keep her eyes open just a tiny bit.

“This is the second time today.”

With those words, his fingers pried between Rukna’s lips.

As her closed lips parted, Matian poured water little by little through the gap.

But the water, not swallowed at all, flowed back out along the corners of her mouth and dripped down along her jawline.

“Damn it, are you not waking up?”

Matian had been using rare curses since earlier.

Rukna found that funny too, but it was still difficult to smile.

“Fine, if you’re not going to wake up till the end. Then let me ask just one thing.”

Lifting Rukna’s chin with one hand, Matian stared into the green eyes behind her barely open eyelids.

And he began, “I might have been mistaken since I was watching from afar, but.”

“You, it seemed like you were fighting the professor with a peculiar weapon that emitted sacred power.”

At those words, Rukna’s fingers, which had been completely limp, twitched slightly.

Did he see the sacred sword? When exactly? Come to think of it, there was a time when Bisby had suddenly disappeared.

“What exactly was that?”

Gulp.

Perhaps due to tension, her throat, which had no intention of moving, finally opened slowly, and the water that had pooled inside her mouth went down.

Matian let out a laugh that sounded like a sigh and patted Rukna’s head as she swallowed the water.

“Hah, why do I feel proud over something like this.”

He took out a handkerchief from his pocket, wet it with water, and then used it to cover Rukna’s nose and mouth.

Although it was stuffy with the large hand covering her nose and mouth over the wet handkerchief, it completely blocked the acrid air leaking from the pipes, making it easier to breathe.

‘I feel like I can live now.’

With each breath, Matian’s scent that had permeated the handkerchief filled her entire body.

For some reason, her body, which had been extremely tense, gradually relaxed, and her eyelids, which had barely been open, closed completely.

“I… don’t like the infirmary. Just take me to the health room…”

With those words, Rukna collapsed completely.