The sound battle of the two behind the door dragged on for a long time. The sounds of fighting echoed for hours with no sign of stopping. However, as time passed, the noise gradually subsided until it finally fell silent. Everyone outside the door waited breathlessly for any sign from the other side. Then, the door slowly creaked open from the inside, using its own magic. Beldar and Muriel, both covered in blood, walked out slowly, leaning on each other.
Beldar carried Muriel, whose body was drenched in dark purple blood resembling the color of wine, over his shoulder. He struggled to support Muriel, who was only slightly taller than him. There was a large wound on her shoulder as if a sword had pierced through it. As the door opened wider, the dwarves and Fumiko, waiting outside, saw countless giant spider corpses strewn across the corridor behind the door, and a fire burning in the distance, sending smoke billowing out with the wind. Yes, the wind blowing from outside the mountain flowed into Listerok through this passage.
“Ay! Someone go call a healer mage, quickly! The demon lord has been bitten by the spider queen!” Beldar gently laid Muriel down on the ground as soon as they emerged from the great door.
“Muriel! Are you alright?” Fumiko ran straight to Muriel the moment Beldar set her down. Muriel, still somewhat conscious, looked up at Fumiko and let out a faint laugh.
“Heh, you foolish human. Do you really think I’m fine after seeing me like this?” Muriel’s body ached with every word she spoke, but those few words were worth it to taunt Fumiko.
“You’re in this much pain, and you still crack jokes? Skill Activation [Advanced Analyze].”
Fumiko activated her skill to analyze Muriel’s condition, her wounds, the poison, and how to treat it. Instantly, multiple windows displaying information about the venom of the Dragonbane Spider appeared in front of her. To everyone else, it looked like Fumiko was staring at the air above Muriel. But Muriel, who noticed Fumiko’s eyes scanning back and forth, realized that she was reading the information.
“Hey, other-worlder, read faster, will you? It hurts, you know,” Muriel joked again, sounding as if she were drunk, while Fumiko hurriedly read through all the details before her.
“The hell is this, Even the demon lord’s anti-venom magic couldn’t hold up against it. It’s causing her to be disoriented like she’s in a severe drunken state.” Fumiko focused intently on the information window, paying no attention to Muriel’s quips. But suddenly, she found it—the way to treat the poison.
“Lord Beldar, Muriel can’t be treated with standard healing magic right now. But I’ve found the way to cure her poison! We need to act fast. The longer we leave Muriel like this, the more pain she’ll be in.”
After reading through Muriel’s data, Fumiko quickly turned to Beldar and the healers. They could hardly believe their ears when Fumiko claimed to know how to cure Muriel’s poison—especially Beldar, who had never seen anyone survive a bite from the spider queen before. Yet here was this human, speaking as if it was not information beyond reach.
"Lady Fumiko, how do you know that the poison inside the demon lord Muriel can be cured?"
"My skill allows me to read information, but let's focus on that later. Muriel is in a lot of pain right now."
"I see, Lady Fumiko. So, this information you have—it's supposed to be able to heal her?" Beldar replied to Fumiko, though he clearly showed signs of distrust in her words. However, he also understood that the innate skills of those from other worlds could possess unbelievable abilities.
"To treat Muriel, we need to drain the blood from the area where she was bitten until the poison is completely purged from her body. While we’re doing this, we must continuously apply healing magic to her until the poison is fully expelled," Fumiko explained. She understood everything about the poison in Muriel’s system but knew that she couldn’t carry out the treatment alone.
"Drain the blood of a dragon, you say?"
The dwarves who overheard this began murmuring among themselves. Not only was this method dangerous due to the heat of a dragon's blood, which could be as scorching as molten lava from its fiery core, but it was also a process used to forge the legendary Dragonblood Steel. Weapons or armor crafted from this material were as light as a feather for those chosen to wield them and nearly indestructible. However, as far as the common dwarves here knew, there wasn’t a space large enough to drain that much dragon blood—except for Beldar.
"Inside there! We need to take the demon lord Muriel to the Dragonblood Forge platform!" Beldar shouted, ordering the dwarves to clear the way behind the door so they could take Muriel to the location where she could transform into her dragon form and drain her blood.
As soon as the dwarves heard Beldar's words, they moved in to carry Muriel, while another group opened the massive door again. The burnt smell of spider flesh, charred by dragon fire, wafted back into their noses. But this time, the dwarven soldiers led the way, with Beldar accompanying them, clearing a path toward the Dragonblood Forge. Following behind were the dwarves carrying Muriel, along with the dwarven healers. Fumiko stood still for a moment, surprised that the dwarves were willing to join forces to help Muriel just from being told what needed to be done. But she knew she couldn’t remain idle now. She quickly followed the dwarves through the door.
Muriel must not die today.
As Fumiko entered the area, she saw that it resembled a weapon-forging factory more than anything else. Despite the numerous spider nests, she could clearly distinguish a well-defined production line. Moreover, she noticed several iron pipes, both on the ceiling and along the walls, seemingly for steam. The dwarves of this fantasy world were more technologically advanced than those in the manga or isekai novels she had read. Eventually, after walking through a massive hallway that stretched up to the ceiling of the cave, she realized that, compared to the dwarves themselves, this place seemed to have been built for giants hundreds of times their size. The dwarves carried Muriel, still in her human form, to a large stone platform nearly 50 meters long and wide, with channels designed for liquid flow. Muriel's body remained mostly motionless, her eyes wandering around in a daze. But then, she looked up to meet Fumiko’s gaze.
“Muriel, Muriel, please change into your dragon form, or they won’t be able to heal you,” Fumiko urged.
“Ugh... It already hurts just to move, and using my skill to transform will make it hurt even more.” Muriel protested, her pained voice breaking Fumiko's heart, but she knew this was the quickest way to save her.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
“It doesn’t have to be the largest form you can manage. Just make it about 40 meters from head to tail.”
“But even at that size, it’ll still hurt.”
“Please, Muriel, it’s for your own healing.”
Fumiko spoke to Muriel gently, caressing her bloodied face with care. The little dragon, called in such an affectionate manner, gradually collected herself, and black liquid began to drip from her mouth. Seeing this, Fumiko quickly ran down from the stone platform where Muriel was lying. Muriel’s body, coated in the black fluid, began to expand until her size fit the stone platform’s capacity. As soon as the black liquid dissipated from her body, boiling blood began to flow from the wound on her shoulder.
“It’s not working—Muriel’s body isn’t bleeding enough. The wound is too small. It will take forev—”
Fumiko watched the slow trickle of blood from Muriel’s wound and spoke to Beldar, but before she could finish, Muriel used her sword-like fangs to tear her own wound open wider, causing more blood to flow. As she did so, she cried out in immense pain, but she endured it. As her blood poured out continuously, Fumiko activated her [Advanced Analyze] skill once more, keeping a close watch on Muriel’s condition. If she lost too much blood, it would do more harm than good.
“Please apply healing magic to Muriel only when I give the signal,” Fumiko instructed the dwarven healers standing by.
“Aren’t we supposed to let the demon lord bleed out the poison and keep using healing magic throughout?” one of them asked, clearly confused. Fumiko herself had mentioned earlier that they needed to let Muriel’s blood flow to purge the poison while maintaining healing.
“Yes, we need to apply light healing magic to prevent her from losing too much blood, but if we heal for too long, we might end up sealing the wound instead,” Fumiko tried to persuade the dwarven healers to follow her directions. They hesitated for a moment, unsure, but Beldar nodded, signaling them to do as she said. With that, they agreed to assist Fumiko with all their strength.
They spent nearly three hours draining the blood and poison from Muriel's body—three long hours through a sleepless night. Finally, Fumiko checked the time on her HUD, a special interface for those from other worlds, and saw that it was six in the morning. The process of cleansing Muriel’s blood of the spider poison was complete. When the procedure was finished, the dwarven healers and Fumiko worked together to close Muriel’s wound with healing magic. Due to the exhaustion from continuous spellcasting and Fumiko keeping her analytical skill active for so long, everyone's magical energy was nearly depleted. The group collapsed, sinking to the ground, too tired to stand.
But just then, the demon lord woke up once more. Black liquid flowed out from her body, causing her to revert to her smaller form. Her golden eyes gleamed like gold under the light on the ceiling. She turned to look at the dwarven healers and Fumiko, who had nearly exhausted themselves healing her. Muriel raised her hand and used the skill [Dragon Lord’s Promise] without needing to chant, instantly restoring the magical energy lost by the dwarves and Fumiko.
“Gasp! It feels like I just got a shot!” Fumiko shot up, sitting upright and taking a deep breath. The dwarves also breathed heavily, as if they had been revived from death. Fumiko glanced up at Muriel, whose blood-stained body was now staring down at her.
“Is it just me, or do I feel stronger somehow? It’s like the magic power inside me feels rejuvenated,” Muriel said, jumping down from the stone platform to sit beside Fumiko.
“When you lose a lot of blood and then get new blood to replace it, it’s like getting rid of the old, bad blood and replacing it with new, good blood. But you know what? This place feels pretty hot for some reason, especially with your boiling blood,” Fumiko replied, playfully pinching Muriel’s nose before letting go.
“Oh, like using leeches for bloodletting, right? Who knew you used to be a doctor, Fumiko? I thought you were just a student.”
“Oh, no, it’s… just something I read about on my phone. Ah, never mind. You wouldn’t get it, Muriel.” Initially, she intended to explain, but then she realized that it was just some small piece of trivia she’d picked up from the internet. But Muriel seemed to think she’d become a bit more knowledgeable, so Fumiko decided to let it be.
“What are you rambling on about now?”
As Muriel and Fumiko continued their increasingly nonsensical chatter, Beldar and a group of dwarves returned to the dragon blood forge room with food and drinks—large pieces of roasted meat nearly the size of their faces and barrels of beer. When they saw that Muriel's treatment was complete, they cheered in unison. Muriel, though, felt a twinge of displeasure deep down, but she couldn’t deny her curiosity about trying a pint of the famous dwarven beer. The smell of the meat made her mouth water immediately.
“Wow, losing all that blood sure made me hungry,” Muriel remarked.
“Oh, come on, Muriel. You’re always hungry! We were casting spells for three straight hours to heal you, you know.”
“But I restored your magical energy didn’t I?” Muriel countered.
Fumiko and Muriel bantered playfully, both feeling relieved and grateful that each was safe. Meanwhile, the dwarven healers didn’t wait for the two of them to join and started eating first. After everyone had finished their meal and beer, not a drop remained. Fumiko felt unusually satisfied with the meal, almost as if the dwarven beer was a hearty loaf of bread. But along with that satisfaction came a throbbing headache—drinking beer first thing in the morning after a sleepless night wasn’t the best idea.
However, now that breakfast was over, there was still one more thing left to do: transforming Muriel’s fiery blood into Dragonblood steel. Once more, Fumiko lent a hand to the dwarven blacksmiths. Her analysis skill proved invaluable, helping refine and forge the steel to perfection. Muriel’s blood was smelted down into ingots, then processed into rolled steel and forged while still hot, giving the finished blade a pattern that resembled rippling water. Though Muriel had shed a significant amount of blood, the resulting metal was scant, insufficient for a large sword but just right for a long dagger that should fit perfectly in Fumiko’s hand.
After the blade was forged, it was fitted with a hilt, featuring a guard crafted with intricate engravings and a handle wrapped carefully in animal hide. Beldar was the first to handle the finished blade. By now, they had left the forge room, making their way to the fortress built into the cave wall for a formal farewell. Many dwarves from the city gathered to witness Fumiko and Muriel as they listened to the parting words of the Hold King, marking the end of their journey and the gift to those who had opened this land to the outside world.
“The first Dragonblood steel dagger in 150 years, It’s truly beautiful. Here, Lady Fumiko, this dagger is yours,” Beldar said as he admired the long blade. He then carefully sheathed it in a carved wooden scabbard depicting a dragon's head breathing fire, handing it over to Fumiko.
“Huh?! Are you sure about this? I only helped out a little,” Fumiko responded, her voice rising in surprise as she accepted the dagger. She hadn’t expected Beldar to give her such a precious gift.
“Try drawing it from its scabbard,” Beldar suggested, taking a step back from her as if anticipating something.
“Huh? Okay, I’ll pull it ou—” Fumiko complied, but the moment she drew the blade, she heard a voice. It was a woman’s voice, eerily similar to Muriel’s, speaking directly to her.
["Do you not wish to claim me as your own?"] The voice questioned. Fumiko wasn’t sure if it was actually Muriel’s voice or just her imagination, but when the dagger asked such a question, she felt compelled to respond. She nodded her head in agreement. Instantly, the water-like patterns along the blade began to glow a deep blue, and black flames enveloped the dagger.
“What the heck is this? Did I just get tricked into pulling it out of its sheath?” Fumiko exclaimed, hastily returning the dagger into the carved scabbard, causing the black flames to vanish immediately.
“And now, you are its rightful owner, Lady Fumiko. No one else can wield it,” Beldar announced with a grin, clearly pleased with his success in making Fumiko the dagger’s master.
“Seems like the steel made from my blood and fire carries quite a bit of my magic,” Muriel observed, her eyes noting the magical aura that lingered around the blade.
“And you, Demon Lord Muriel—if it weren’t for your help, those spiders would’ve continued to torment us every night. For that, I, Beldar Oakbone, offer you our deepest thanks. The dwarves of Listerok will remember this debt,” Beldar turned to Muriel, bowing deeply to express his gratitude.
“Fine. You did help save my life too, so I’ll hold onto those words for a while,” Muriel replied, her tone grudgingly accepting. Meanwhile, extending her hand to Beldar, showing respect as an equal.
“Who would have thought that a Demon Lord and the dwarves of Listerok could join forces like this?” Beldar said as he firmly shook Muriel’s hand, while Fumiko stood between them as a witness to this alliance. As a diplomat from Alderia, she bore witness to this historic moment. The other dwarves, who had gathered to watch, erupted into cheers.
“Hooray!”