The Last Surviving Alchemist Wants to Live Quietly in the City

It used to be lush land, village elders said.

The man who was last born in this dry land had no idea how long ago that was.

An endless horizon of bright blue skies and dry earth.

That's what the man knew about the world.

When was the last time it rained?

In the dry earth, men sow even today.

Hurt the earth that is rough and dry, and drain your own blood there.

"Abnormal Recovery (Surfet Heel)"

With restorative magic that overgrows cells, the blood draped on the earth grows, rots and turns into soil that only very slightly brings grace to plants.

The sown seed literally grows the tide of men's blood into food to bear only a few fruits.

"Here too, soon to be swallowed by the desert…………"

The earth around him, sucking the blood of men and slowly dying, was transforming into a red desert.

It will soon turn to sand around here.

The fruit of the crop is thin, and no matter how much you sow, you can't even sprout it without magic.

It was only a matter of the earliest time before the men's clan returned to the dry earth.

"How long will we see this land? This land has been abandoned, and we have been abandoned."

To the man's words, the elders just shake their heads without power.

"Because we have something to blame, and this must be our punishment.

Our flesh sprouted upon the land, and our lives gushed forth more than upon the land. Here it decays, but our statute. Everything remains the will of the Spirit of the water that unites this vein. "

And the families of men that drew the blood of the water dragon lived long for their blood, and they were stubborn for their blood.

He moistened the dry earth, which could not be lived by a living creature, with blood and magic, and connected his life with scarce food.

The red desert is their tomb mark.

The last land of the clans, who hungered and died, and returned dry and to the red sand, who stuck themselves in the chains of faith.

Once a family of men believed in the Spirit of Water, which unites the earth's pulse, and said they were under its protection. The youngest man in the clan doesn't know when the hell it was that the water spirits could have lost from this land.

No one in the clan knows where or why the spirits of the water that united the land and the clan disappeared. Believe me, one day he would come back to this land, and the clan would only wait for the earliest death.

The weak woman had been gone for a long time, and the man had no one else to live with besides the old men who were dying.

"The Red Desert is a testament to the blood of our clan. Return here, but what we want.

But, young man, you may travel through the land.

If you're the only one born at the end, the Spirit of Water will forgive you. "

After dropping off the last elder's life returning to the earth, the man followed the red desert.

Whether you walk or not, the horizon continues unchanged.

A bright blue sky with no clouds would be much bluer and clearer than what I heard about the ocean.

The man had remembered the fairy tale that the blue of the sky with nothing to block was the garment of the god of the ruthless sun.

The sun god will burn the earth down in anger because the earth will pollute the hem of a clear and beautiful blue coat.

In this land, the goddess of the moon, who presides over death, is much more gentle than the sun.

Cold enough to freeze, it frees me from the bitterness of raw and gives me a permanent sleep.

Far horizons showed change when men began to think that there was no protection of the Spirit of water in the earliest world and that this dry earth and ruthless sky was everything in the world.

Mountain.

In the far mountains, from the mountains, not water, but sand was flowing into the desert, but the man regained his strength in the clouds drifting over it.

There are clouds. In other words, it rains on that land.

You must have walked a few days.

Over a pile of dry rocks, the man moved forward as he stepped over a lake of dry salt that made noise at the feet of the sari. The salt lake was white and dry, and there were no grass trees around it, but when I dug it, the water gushed out easily.

Although it was salty as it was and not very drinkable, the water evaporated into the heat of the day cooled at night and turned into brine.

It would have been a miracle for a man to follow the falling shadows of the clouds and stray from the sparse grass, eating beasts running in the shadows of the rocks, to reach the river.

The man found out the truth about his homeland at the source where he traced back that river, thin and cloudy in the earth, tracing its origins.

What inhabited the source was the spirits of the water that the clan had been waiting for. The moment we met, the man understood that it was the object of faith engraved in his blood.

"O Lord of mercy, thou purified, the Spirit of the water from which life originated, why hast thou forsaken us? Now, with that help, we have healed our land."

To the Spirit of the Water, who finally found it, the Spirit told the man, who begged him to do all he could to return to the land, that the Spirit, who was protecting the man's homeland, could not disappear long ago.

- Descendants of the water, our last child.

After all the ordeal, you made it this far.

But I'm not the water spirits you know.

We disappear at birth, something indefinite as a transformation.

I arise in this source of water and am only one that exists for a time.

There must have been fluctuations in the ground vein, although I hadn't heard about the past of the land.

It is not extraordinarily unusual compared to the life of the earth.

If the course of the earth's pulse changes, the Spirit loses power, so the water will wither away.

"So where the hell did our water spirits go? How can you come back to me?

- The spirits of that land no longer exist in the world.

People are born, and they die, right? It doesn't make a difference.

Son of a man who draws the blood of water, do not stay.

And the waters of the land wither away. Go for water.

Even without the spirits of the land, the mercy of the water is endless.

The drought of the land that led the clan to a slow death.

There was no blame for the clan there, and that was neither punishment nor anything.

Fluctuations in the earth's pulse, not unlike earthquakes and storms, are just natural disasters that have withered the earth.

"Then why was my family so imprisoned in that land? What is this emotion that scorches this heart, abandoned and forgotten?"

The man's journey does not end.

This is a far memory engraved in blood...

"I hear I have dragon man's blood on me."

Awakened Franz told Mariella and Eurike that.

Franz's face, which tells him that the memory of a man seeking the Spirit of the Water is that of his ancestors, is covered with a blue scale to the neck that is slightly visible, although not clearly visible, hidden in a hood worn in the depths of his eyes. The boot has a torn toe and stretched sharp hook nails, and the hand can see the fingers and sharp nails covered in scales by tearing the fingertips of armored gloves.

Perhaps the dragon man's blood ran wild, losing his memory of living as Franz.

"Strangely enough, I still remember spending time in Eurique and Empire City. I don't think that's why you lost yourself completely."

Franz's memories he didn't forget, he said, were the memories he regained a few days ago when Eurike and Mariella visited Franz's former home. They won't lose their memories once they're back. At that time, Franz might have turned completely into a dragon if he hadn't visited the northwest tower.

It was Franz who helped Mariela and the others caught in the tornado, and the effect of the dragonization or Franz, who could stay in the water for a long time, transported her to the top floor of the northwest tower to Mariela, Eurique and Raptor's Cu. Salamander, who was stuck on Mariella's shoulder, is also climbing to the body of Ku of Okja and Raptor, as if he had snuck inside his jacket.

"Franz, are you okay?

Eurike leans closer to Franz worried without Franz's scaly face, sharp hook claws, mince or fear. Mariela thought that the way it was going wasn't the usual boy thing, but that of a girl about the age.

"You made me worry, Eurike. I'm a little confused because I remember past events all at once, but I'm fine now"

The beads of Franz's memory were also brought by the Mariellas, and they were collecting them for Franz himself. I guess not all my memories came back, but it seemed more Franz now that I had changed my appearance than before.

"Wouldn't you like to go back? ……."

Mariella asks for a favor.

Eurike doesn't seem to care at all, but the hands and feet that have exceeded human size, and perhaps the faces that would have changed their contours, would be difficult to live in today's imperial and labyrinth cities.

"I think it's probably temporary. The dragon man of my memorable ancestor didn't look like this either. But this one is more aggressive. You can stay like this now."

To Franz, who tells him he can go back, Mariella remembers the dream she had earlier.

The memory of Franz, which Mariella glimpses, is not the only memory of her ancestors engraved in blood.

Probably the ancestral one. Neither did those with scales on their faces appear in Franz's lineage, at least to the extent that they were oral.

Franz's father loved his healing magic talent, but his mother, who was supposed to have suffered a stomachache, neglected his appearance as a "lizard."

Some of the memories Mariella peeked at included the painful memories of a young boy begging for his mother's love, scraping his face with a blade and magically regenerating it.

Abnormal healing (surfeit heel) is not just healing magic. This special healing magic engraved on the Dragon Man's blood heals the subject reflecting the will of the surgeon.

Of course it is not a natural appearance, so the same skin that young Franz gained from bleeding was again scaled within weeks by the healing power of his tough flesh.

(I wonder if Eurike saw Franz's memory...)

It must have been a natural flow for a lizard and a man who grew up despised to gain peace in life with a girl who loved the beast more than men.

The way Eurike leaned in on Franz looked the same as usual except for worry and relief, and I couldn't deduce whether Eurike saw Franz's memory of Mariela peeking.

Maybe Eurike doesn't need Franz's memory.

If I have to, I'm sure I'll tell him. Because that's how they've lived together. Mariella has that experience.

"Nevertheless..."

What helped me then was Franz, who regained some sanity, but I wonder what the shock triggered and what the sudden dawn was.

Mariella walks up to the window as she deflects her gaze from Eurike and Franz, who are always flirting.

(Probably............ but)

I have an imagination. Or how many days has it been since then?

Of course, I can think of a difference in the flow of time between here and the real world, but that doesn't matter. If reason manages emotions, the world is bound to be much more peaceful and boring.

"There it is, seventh bottle"

The passage connecting east and west to the north has collapsed and cut off every wall. At night, a black demon pushes from it like an avalanche, but just halfway between its collapsed exterior walls, a new tower stood.

(Now, I don't have to ask you any excuses!

Where the hell did you go when you jumped out of "Leaky Wood Day"? Would you say that it was done in a delicate manner by Tsunken women's Yurike?

A glimpse of Franz and Eurique brewing the two worlds, Mariella shrugged in her mind toward the seventh tower.