At Eblana's command, the long-dead heads of the Lefort family scrambled toward the collapsed section of the tunnel. Almost the moment they arrived, they all dropped to their knees and began digging frantically through the rubble with their bare hands.
With the violet fire reinforcing them, and being dead already—immune to pain, unaware of fatigue—clearing the blockage was almost effortless for them.
As for Eblana, after issuing that command, she felt as though another portion of her strength had been sucked out of her body. She nearly collapsed on the spot. Fortunately, the constitution of a red dragon proved its worth at that moment. Aside from her face growing even paler, she was still able to remain standing.
She took a few steps forward, then suddenly felt something hard under her foot. Sensing something strange, Eblana moved her foot aside and illuminated the ground with her violet fire.
The object that had jabbed her sole revealed itself.
A ring. A ring that looked to be made of pure gold.
And not just one.
Following the path lit by the violet fire, Eblana saw that the floor—which had been completely empty when she first entered—was now scattered with glittering valuables.
Rings. Earrings. Solid gold wristwatches...
"These are... things those old fossils dropped?"
The moment she saw them, Eblana immediately thought of the panicked scramble of those dead men from moments earlier.
The gold they had worn in life had scarcely changed with time. But the flesh that had once carried it had long since dried out, shriveled, or rotted away.
As for the ones who had already been reduced to skeletons, some of their rings and ornaments had simply slipped off and fallen near their coffins.
Honestly, she had no real interest in such things.
The value of an object existed only because people assigned value to it. Even gold and gemstones, if stripped of the meaning people gave them, were nothing more than lumps of metal and stone.
But...
Perhaps remembering the look on Zuojian's face when he had stared at his empty wallet in distress, or perhaps recalling the way he had smiled through the pain, Eblana hesitated for a moment before crouching down and gathering the scattered gold ornaments into her arms.
And while she picked them up, she muttered to herself:
"This isn't for that man. This isn't for that man. It's just that if he keeps up this ridiculous act, then Loughshinny and I are going to end up living in worse and worse conditions. So no, this isn't for him. It's for Loughshinny and me."
"Yes. That's all."
...
While Eblana was busily collecting her "spoils," on the other side of the tunnel, the former Lefort patriarchs worked with such terrifying speed that it did not take long for them to clear a passage wide enough for two people to pass through.
Only then did the corpses slump down one after another, as though some trace of their mortal habits still remained. Several even reached up and wiped at foreheads that no longer had sweat.
"Whew... I'm exhausted... wait, no I'm not."
"You old fool, you've been dead for years—how could you even get tired? ...Still, when I think about it, what the hell did I do wrong in life to get dragged back out of my coffin and used as free labor?"
A few of the corpses who had clearly been close in life now sat leaning against the wall, as though savoring a reunion of fathers and sons, grandfathers and grandsons, even great-grandfathers and great-grandsons.
But having slept for so long, most of their memories had already been worn away by time.
At that moment, the youngest-looking and most intact corpse present—the one who, in theory, should have been the last true head of the Lefort family—slowly rolled his stiff neck and asked curiously,
"By the way, who exactly is that little girl? That purple fire of hers can actually haul dead people back up and make them work."
"That's seriously terrifying. It's practically like—"
The instant he said that, the entire room fell into a deathly silence.
They were already dead, of course, but apparently the thought he had blurted out was more terrifying than death itself.
Even the speaker froze in place.
At that moment, their long-rotted brains seemed to begin turning once more. Memories blurred by the erosion of years suddenly rose into clarity.
Almost every one of them—every corpse in the room—spoke at once.
"Violet fire? Vouivre... no, Draco!"
"The Evil Dragon!!!"
"Then that means... that means... from now on, we'll belong to her forever? She can command us however she wants? As long as she lives, we'll never be free?"
"Victoria profanity, I thought the Evil Dragon was just a bedtime story those old geezers used to scare children. How the hell is it real?!"
"Old bastard, say something! Weren't you the one who said it was just a children's story?"
"How the hell should I know?! When your grandfather's grandfather told me that story, he also said it was just for scaring kids! How was I supposed to know it was real?!"
"S-So what do we do? I refuse to spend the afterlife dragged around and used as someone's servant!"
"Would it still work if I got back in the coffin right now?"
"You senile old corpse, are you stupid?! If she can drag you out of a coffin once, she can drag you out a second time!"
"Why the hell didn't I get cremated instead of listening to all you old fools and insisting on leaving behind a complete corpse?!"
The youngest corpse clutched his forehead in regret.
They could already envision their grim future—being worked like beasts forever under the command of the Evil Dragon. For these former aristocrats, who had once all known a life of privilege, such a fate felt worse than death.
For a time, chaos reigned.
Then, the next second, a measured set of footsteps echoed through the tunnel.
Tap...
Once, then again.
Tap.
"The Evil Dragon is coming?! What do we do? I don't want to be her slave!"
"Wait... those footsteps aren't coming from the direction the Evil Dragon was in."
Several corpses whose senses had not entirely decayed knelt down and pressed themselves against the ground, listening closely.
"The footsteps are coming from... the other side?"
At those words, everyone turned toward the newly opened gap in the collapsed rubble. They all stared intently at the passage they had just excavated, realizing that whatever was coming was trapped on the other side just as much as they were trapped here.
They hoped. They feared.
They hoped that whatever came through would be anything at all, so long as it offered some way out of continued servitude under the violet fire.
And they feared, just as much, that if the thing coming through was the Evil Dragon's companion, then they would truly be finished.
All of them were focused on that passage, waiting to see what would emerge from it.
But as the footsteps drew closer, no figure appeared there at all.
Instead, the wall beside them rippled.
Then, before their disbelieving eyes, a man in a dark brown coat and round-topped hat stepped straight through the wall as if he had no physical form whatsoever.
"G-Ghost!!"
Several corpses screamed in terror. A few were so startled that their heads literally came loose from their necks and rolled across the floor, leaving them crawling around on their knees, shrieking while fumbling for their missing skulls.
"Calm yourselves, gentlemen. If I truly were a ghost, shouldn't that make you happy? In most human ghost stories and folk tales, zombies, skeleton soldiers, and ghosts all belong to the same camp, don't they?"
"That... actually sounds reasonable."
A few of the corpses froze, then nodded instinctively, as though his logic made a disturbing amount of sense.
But the next moment they backed away again warily.
"Y-You... are you that Evil Dragon's companion?"
"Companion? No. I am neither anyone's companion nor anyone's enemy. Most of the time, I am merely a neutral observer. Unless something unexpected and urgent happens... like now."
The mysterious man pointed toward Zuojian, who lay on the ground with his breathing growing weaker and weaker.
"Him?"
Several of the corpses leaned in curiously—then abruptly cried out.
"Just as I thought! He isn't a descendant of the Lefort family! I can tell!"
After examining him up close, several of the older corpses pointed at Zuojian and declared their conclusion.
"His soul is different. Stranger even than the Evil Dragon's."
At that, the mysterious man sighed. He glanced at Zuojian on the ground, then shook his head.
"Sigh... an unexpected development. To be honest, I hadn't imagined that in such a short amount of time, you'd manage to create such a large complication... Well then, ladies and gentlemen, while I am grateful for your spirited efforts in clearing the tunnel, I'm afraid I must now allow you to sleep permanently. That little red dragon being able, at this stage, to raise the dead after centuries and command them is somewhat beyond the scope of the original plan."
What power was it?
Obsession? Or perhaps...
He looked at Zuojian, and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
Love.
And as soon as the corpses heard the phrase "sleep permanently," those who had been ready to resist instantly lost all will to fight. One after another, they threw themselves toward the mysterious man, kneeling before him and fixing him with desperate, pleading looks from the violet flames dancing in their empty sockets.
"Really? Please, by all means, let us go back to sleep! We'll agree to any condition you name! We can even acknowledge, right now, that the man lying there is the rightful heir of the Lefort family!"
...
After gathering all the glittering valuables from the floor, Eblana made her way back toward the tunnel.
But as she walked, she suddenly noticed something wrong.
Several of the violet flames appeared directly in front of her. Upon finding Eblana, they seemed almost eager as they rushed toward her, then returned straight into her chest, causing the violet fire at the base of her tail to burn more fiercely than before.
As the flames returned, she could clearly feel the strength she had lost rapidly restoring itself.
But that could only mean one thing...
Those old corpses had slipped free of her control?
Realizing that, Eblana quickened her pace. Soon, when she reached the other side of the collapsed passage, she saw at once the remains of those corpses scattered across the ground in tangled heaps.
She tried to urge her violet fire back into them, to force them upright once more. But the instant the flames touched them, the bodies weathered away like old dust. In moments, most of the bones and rotten flesh crumbled into powder.
"How could this..."
She stared anxiously at the powder on the ground, then at the unconscious Zuojian nearby, and for perhaps the first time in her life, felt truly helpless.
At that moment, a voice sounded beside her.
"This is not your fault. In life, they were only ordinary people. They had neither powerful bodies nor indomitable wills. Even raised by your violet fire, they could not endure for long."
The girl turned toward the source of the voice.
One skeleton still remained intact.
Violet fire still burned in its eye sockets, proving that it remained under Eblana's command.
She remembered him—he had said he was the youngest of the family heads.
That was probably why his body had lasted the longest.
"There is no need to worry. Once we saw that man, we realized something: he truly is our descendant. And because of that final surviving inheritance, those old fools were willing to dig with everything they had, even at the cost of collapsing ahead of time."
The skeleton slowly rose and stepped aside.
Only then did Eblana notice that behind him was a newly dug path, just wide enough for two people to pass through.
And once he had moved aside, even this final surviving skeleton began to show signs of imminent collapse.
Seeing that, Eblana fell silent for a moment, then asked:
"Why?"
"Because of my command?"
"Yes... and no."
"If it had only been about your order, then we could have taken turns digging, so that none of us would have been forced to crumble away completely. It would have been slower, but your command never required us to finish by any specific time."
"Then why...?"
"Because of love."
Eblana froze, staring at the skeleton before her as it stood on the verge of disintegration.
"Because of... love?"
"Because we loved our children, so we were willing to pay the price of total oblivion for them."
"Just as Zuojian Lefort threw himself into danger and was gravely wounded to save you."
"We all loved our children. That is why we were willing to stake everything—whether that everything was the life of the living, or the life of the dead."
"But... I regret it."
At that, Eblana's expression changed sharply.
"What do you mean, you regret it?!"
"He is dying. Even if he gets out of here, he is unlikely to survive. Unless you can find a proper doctor..."
Before the skeleton could finish, Eblana had already hoisted Zuojian's body onto her shoulders and sprinted toward the newly opened way without pausing for even a second.
Watching the girl's retreating figure, the "skeleton" slowly smiled.
Late that night, the corridor lights in the Lefort manor had been switched on.
The door to what had been the girls' bedroom was violently kicked open, the loud crash jolting Loughshinny awake from sleep.
She rubbed her drowsy eyes, looked up in confusion, and murmured:
"Sister?"
But Eblana said nothing.
She simply carried Zuojian in and laid him down on the bed.
The moment Loughshinny saw the man's weakened state, her eyes flew wide with terror. Then she turned toward her own sister, and in her expression there was even the faintest trace of suspicion.
But Eblana offered no explanation.
She set Zuojian down, then coldly said to Loughshinny:
"Take care of him. I'm going to find a doctor."
Before her younger sister could even react, Eblana was already racing back down the stairs. Within a few breaths, she had left the manor entirely and vanished into the street in search of help.
But it was the dead of night.
Even if there were clinics nearby, none should still have been open.
And yet Eblana refused to give up. Clinging to the smallest shred of hope, she kept running, searching for any clinic that might still be lit.
Perhaps heaven pitied her—or perhaps it was something else entirely.
After rounding an unfamiliar corner, Eblana suddenly saw it:
A small clinic with a shabby exterior, its doors standing open. Warm yellow light spilled from the bulbs inside, illuminating the whole stretch of street around it. It was the only light for some distance.
Without hesitation, she ran inside.
At the moment, only one person sat at the front desk.
A middle-aged woman with a somewhat kindly face was in the middle of slowly shrugging off her white coat, reaching instead for a dark brown overcoat and a lady's round hat hanging nearby.
The moment she saw Eblana, she spoke as though she had been expecting her all along.
"Hello there, little one. Are you here to see a doctor?"
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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