LTTCH 22

Chapter 22

Startled, I hurriedly looked around.

What I saw was a snowy mountain range completely covered in pure white snow.

Why the heck am I suddenly in a snow mountain?

I didn’t even know how to use magic, but considering I’d suddenly been teleported here, that fountain pen must’ve been some kind of magical artifact too.

As one question led to another—

Whoooosh—!

A vicious snowstorm swept through the mountain.

No, if you’re going to teleport someone to a place like this, at least give them a coat first!

Shivering violently, I wrapped my arms around myself.

“At this rate, I’m gonna freeze to death…”

As I trembled from the cold, I suddenly noticed bloodstains scattered across the snow.

Wait, did some kind of duel happen here or something?

Then doesn’t that mean I’m in extreme danger right now, considering I don’t even have a weapon?

Only now realizing the reality of the situation, fear washed over me.

I didn’t know what was going on, but one thing was certain: don’t follow the bloodstains. Who knew what I’d run into if I did?

So I deliberately began walking in the opposite direction.

I hoped I might find a house or someplace warm eventually, but no matter how far I walked, all I saw were snow-covered mountains.

By now my hands and feet were frozen numb.

My steps gradually slowed as my strength faded away.

And then—

Ding!

[Find the fountain pen affected by ■■■.]

A system window appeared.

The fountain pen?

Right. I’d touched the pen and gotten teleported here, so maybe if I touched it again, I could return.

I was certain I’d been holding the pen when I teleported, but it had disappeared once I arrived on the mountain.

If so, maybe it had fallen nearby.

Barely forcing my frozen body to move, I returned to where I’d first appeared.

And then something different appeared before me.

A kind arrow kindly pointing the direction I needed to go.

Unfortunately, the arrow pointed exactly toward the bloodstains.

But I had no other choice now.

I began walking in the direction the arrow indicated.

How long had I wandered across the endless white snowfield following the trail of blood?

It was around the time exhaustion nearly made me collapse—

“Kh….”

A faint groan echoed through the wind.

I headed toward the sound.

And then I saw it.

Far away beneath a massive tree sat a beast slumped against the trunk.

Suppressing my footsteps, I carefully approached it.

Scales black as if carved from the darkness of night itself.

Enormous wings.

Blood-red eyes.

No matter how you looked at it—

It was a dragon.

Startled, I immediately turned around to run.

But just as I was about to flee, the fountain pen flashed through my mind.

Since the arrow had been pointing toward the dragon, the pen was probably somewhere near it.

After hesitating briefly, I cautiously approached the dragon again.

The ground around it was stained crimson with blood.

It seemed injured.

If it was hurt this badly, maybe it wouldn’t attack me so easily.

Feeling slightly reassured, I stepped closer.

That was when I saw the deep wound carved into the dragon’s side, blood pouring endlessly from it.

At this rate, it’s going to die.

I searched thoroughly around the dragon, but the fountain pen was nowhere to be found.

As I stood there with a despairing expression, an idea suddenly crossed my mind.

If I saved the dragon… maybe I could ask it to take me home?

Like, “I am your savior, so please carry me home.”

I was imagining myself flying home on a dragon’s back when an extremely important problem occurred to me.

Wait, how exactly am I supposed to save a dragon?

I didn’t even have bandages or medicine.

It would be nice if I could use healing magic like Shamal did before.

As I anxiously paced around, I suddenly remembered something Shamal had once said.

Right.

He said I possessed a tiny amount of magical power too.

Who knows? Maybe in an emergency, magical power could display incredible strength.

Realistically, it made absolutely no sense for someone who wasn’t even a mage to use healing magic.

But right now, I had to cling to even the smallest hope.

But… how do you even use magic?

I bit my lip helplessly—

And then a stream of bright red blood flowed from between the dragon’s teeth before it collapsed onto the snow with a heavy thud.

At this rate, the dragon really would die.

“Screw it.”

I pressed my hands against the dragon’s wound and focused with all my might, trying to use this thing called magic.

“Please… work…”

I didn’t know how to cast magic.

But if the god who sent me into this world was watching this situation right now—

Please, just help me this once.

It was while I prayed desperately that—

Suddenly, I felt something flowing inside my body.

Something warm, like a thin stream of blood.

I didn’t know what it was.

But as I watched a faint light gather around my fingertips, I thought maybe—just maybe—magic was actually activating.

I continued pressing firmly against the dragon’s bleeding wound.

Then the light blooming from my fingertips seeped into the dragon’s body.

And little by little, ever so slightly, the wound began healing.

At the same time, black flames burst near the dragon’s heart.

I didn’t know what it was, but it looked incredibly ominous.

More importantly, this is exhausting.

Even just keeping my hands here is draining everything out of me.

Cold sweat poured down my face as I continued channeling the light into the dragon.

How much time passed?

The black flames gradually weakened before finally disappearing entirely.

“Did it work?”

At the same moment, the light flowing from my hands also vanished.

Carefully, I removed my hand from the wound and confirmed that the dragon’s injuries had completely healed.

“Wow… that was seriously exhausting…”

Panting heavily, I collapsed onto the snow.

The dragon’s breathing had become steady, so it seemed to have recovered, but it still showed no signs of waking up.

I blankly stared up at the sky.

I used magic.

Even though I’m not a mage.

Could it be… that I actually have some incredible ability?

But wait, was there anything like this in the original story?

Startled, I quickly opened the system window.

[World Destruction Progress: 13%]

Thankfully, the gauge hadn’t increased.

Which probably meant this was part of the world’s setting, but simply hadn’t been covered in the original story.

For an extra character, Rene’s pretty amazing.

As I sat there lost in thought, a brilliant light suddenly burst out beside me.

The light was so blinding that I instinctively shut my eyes for a moment.

And when I opened them again—

“Who are you?”

The dragon had completely disappeared.

Instead, a man was standing in front of me.

The man stared at me intensely.

So intensely that I eventually had to look away out of embarrassment.

Then he strode toward me and suddenly pulled me into his arms.

“Rone…? How are you here… No, more importantly… were you alive this whole time?”

The man’s voice trembled violently.

“I’m not Rone, I’m Rene. And who exactly are you…?”

At my words, he pulled away from me and stared blankly for a moment before suddenly seeming to come back to his senses.

Then he lunged at me.

“Wah!”

The man pinned me onto the freezing snow and thrust sharp claws toward me.

“What are you?”

I quickly raised both hands in surrender.

But the man didn’t lower his guard.

“I-I’m just some passerby…”

As I stammered while trembling, the man slowly looked over my clothes from head to toe before asking,

“A passerby dressed like this?”

If I told him I’d suddenly been teleported here, he’d obviously become suspicious, so I desperately tried to come up with an excuse.

“W-Well… yes. I happened to hear groaning while passing by, so I came to see if there was anything I could do to help…”

After listening to my clumsy explanation, the man apparently decided I wasn’t a threat and slowly removed the hand pressing down on my shoulder.

“What happened? I clearly remember being attacked.”

Brushing snow off his clothes, the man spoke indifferently.

“I was wandering around looking for something when I found an injured dragon, so I healed it. Then suddenly the dragon disappeared and you appeared instead.”

I’m the victim here too, you know.

I saved the dragon so it could take me home, but instead the dragon vanished, and now I’m getting attacked by some weird guy!

As I secretly glared at him, the man seemed to notice my gaze and looked back at me.

“That dragon was me.”

“…What?”

“The dragon you saved. That was me.”