Chapter 181: A Useful Life

Chapter 181: 181: A Useful Life

Lucard looked at him for several breaths before speaking. His own body still felt like broken stone held together by wet cloth. The hole in his stomach had closed, but it had not truly healed. Deep inside the wound, Alan’s earth mana remained like sharp sand. Every time Lucard breathed, that foreign power scraped against his flesh and tried to open the injury again.

He moved his fingers.

They answered.

He moved his legs.

They also answered.

But when he tried to push more strength into his body, pain climbed from his stomach to his chest and made his vision darken for one breath. Standing was impossible for now. Walking was even worse. If a beast entered the cave at this moment, he could fight only with blood threads and tricks.

That was not enough.

Lucard looked at Elowen. "How long was I out?"

Elowen was sitting near the cave wall with Puff in her lap. She looked exhausted enough to fall asleep where she sat, but fear kept her awake. Her bleeding palm had been wrapped with a torn strip from her dress. The cloth was already red in the middle.

She shook her head slowly. "Many hours. I do not know exactly. I stopped counting after the rain started."

Lucard listened.

Only then did he properly hear it.

Rain struck the forest outside like endless falling stones. It hammered against leaves, roots, and the broken slope above the cave. Water ran down somewhere near the entrance, making a steady rushing sound. The small barrier of black fern and hanging roots shook under the force of the storm.

Lucard asked, "What time is it?"

"I do not know," Elowen said. Her voice was hoarse from crying and thirst. "It is raining cats and dogs outside. It is so dark I cannot tell if it is night or only storm clouds."

Lucard closed his eyes for one breath.

Heavy rain was useful.

It would wash away blood, scent, and tracks. It would make beasts move differently. It would also make the forest more dangerous, because mud could hide holes, water could carry poison, and hungry things liked to hunt when sound covered their movement.

Elowen looked at Cedric again.

"Please help him."

Lucard opened his eyes. "I cannot."

"You helped yourself."

"I drank blood."

"Then give him blood too."

Lucard looked at her with cold eyes. "It is not that simple."

Elowen crawled closer to Cedric. The puffer rabbit hopped after her, ears low. Cedric’s face had lost too much color. His breathing was shallow. The hole in his chest had stopped bleeding heavily, but only because there was not much blood left to lose. A faint crystal glow still moved weakly around his wound, trying to hold broken flesh together.

"He will die," Elowen said.

"Yes."

"You can do something."

"I cannot even move from here."

"But you can try."

Lucard stared at her.

Elowen’s lips trembled. "Please. You are awake now. You can think. You always think. Think of something."

Lucard became silent.

The honest answer was simple. If Cedric died, Lucard lost little. The pact had already served its purpose. The puffer rabbit remained. The Deepwell water remained. Cedric’s death might even remove one future problem. Cedric was talented, dangerous, and hiding a family name. Once healed, he could become an enemy again.

Saving him carried risk.

Leaving him to die carried almost none.

Elowen’s eyes filled with tears again.

Lucard felt his patience thin.

The cave was already dark, wet, painful, and dangerous. Her crying added nothing useful. Yet the sound also pressed against something strange that had not fully disappeared since he woke with her blood in his mouth.

He disliked that too.

"Stop crying," he said.

She looked at him with anger through tears. "He is dying."

"I can see that."

"Then do something."

Lucard exhaled slowly. "I will try something. Stop it."

Elowen wiped her face quickly with her sleeve, though the tears did not fully stop. "What do I do?"

Lucard lifted his left hand with effort. His fingers shook slightly before he controlled them. "Cut my wrist."

Elowen froze. "Your wrist?"

"Yes."

"You just healed from a stomach wound."

"And you are wasting time asking obvious things."

She picked up the small knife with her uninjured hand. Her face showed fear again, but she moved closer. "How much?"

"Enough to wet his mouth. Not enough to drain me."

"That is not a clear amount."

"It is clear enough."

Elowen pressed the blade to his wrist.

Lucard watched her hand. It shook, but less than before. She cut a thin line across his skin. Blood rose slowly. It was darker than normal blood and thicker too. The scent of it filled the cave at once.

Puff’s ears stood up.

Elowen looked uneasy. "It smells strange."

"Take it to him."

She cupped some of Lucard’s blood with the clean side of a broken crystal cap from Cedric’s supplies. Then she moved to Cedric and carefully pressed it against his lips.

Cedric did not react at first.

Lucard closed his eyes and moved his blood from a distance.

A thin thread of power followed the blood into Cedric’s mouth. Along with it moved something much smaller. A tiny dormant blood parasite seed, no larger than a dust speck, slipped inside the blood. It did not awaken. It did not attack. It hid with Lucard’s mark and moved toward Cedric’s chest.

Lucard did not smile.

This was insurance.

Cedric was useful alive. He could be bait. He could be a bodyguard. He could be a hunter when Lucard needed blood to recover fully. He knew the forest better than Elowen. He had Puff. He had crystal magic. Until Lucard could stand, walk, and kill properly again, Cedric’s life had value.

But a useful person could still bite.

The parasite would make sure Cedric’s teeth turned inward if needed.

Elowen did not notice.

She was too focused on keeping Cedric’s head lifted.

"Is it working?" she whispered.

Lucard guided his blood carefully. He did not give Cedric enough to truly heal him. That would be foolish. He gave enough to pull him back from the edge. The blood entered the broken chest and moved around the wound. Cedric’s own crystal mana tried to reject it at first, but Lucard softened the blood thread and changed its movement.

It was not to control him. Not yet. It was for support.

The torn flesh around Cedric’s chest twitched. The bleeding slowed further. The wet sound in his breathing became lighter. His heart, which had been beating weakly, struck harder once.

Then again.

Cedric coughed.

Elowen almost dropped him. "Cedric?"

Cedric’s eyes opened halfway.

For a moment, they were empty. Then pain returned to them, and he groaned like someone being dragged out of a grave by the hair.

"That," Cedric whispered, "was unpleasant."

Elowen laughed once through her tears. It sounded broken but real. "You are alive."

Cedric looked at her, then at Lucard. His eyes sharpened weakly. "Why?"

Lucard leaned against the cave wall. "You are still useful."

Cedric closed his eyes for a second. "Scary but Comforting."

"It was not meant to be."

"I guessed."

Cedric tried to sit up. But he failed the first time.

Elowen helped him carefully, and Lucard used one thin blood thread to support his back from the shadows. Cedric did not notice the thread clearly. He only felt something hold him long enough to reach the cave wall.

At last, Cedric sat with his back against the stone.

His face was still deathly pale. The hole in his chest had not vanished. It had only closed enough to keep him breathing. Blood soaked his clothes, and his hands trembled when he tried to lift them. He reached for his wand, but even that small movement made him hiss in pain.

Puff hopped onto his lap and pressed its head against his stomach.

Cedric looked down at the rabbit. "You survived too."

Puff gave a weak squeak.

Cedric gave a tired smile. "Good. I would be embarrassed to die before you."

Elowen looked at Lucard. "Can you heal him more?"

"No."

"Can you heal yourself more?"

"No."

Cedric breathed carefully. "Can either of you walk?"

Elowen looked at her bleeding feet and did not answer.

Lucard said, "Not properly."

Cedric tried to move his leg. It shifted, but he could not put strength into it. "I cannot walk either."

The cave became silent except for the rain.

Three injured people and one exhausted puffer rabbit sat in the dark while the Deep Maw Forest breathed outside.

Lucard’s anger returned slowly.

Alan had reduced them to this.

A peak Sixth Circle elder had torn through every plan, every trap, every borrowed beast, and every trick. Lucard had survived because Elowen dragged him away and gave him blood. Cedric had survived because Lucard chose usefulness over waste. None of it changed the truth.

He had been beaten for first time since his reincarnation.

Lucard looked at his own hand. It still trembled slightly.

He closed it into a fist.

The anger at himself was cold and deep. But underneath it was another anger, sharper and more patient.

Alan Gravenhart.

Lucard would kill him somehow, as soon as he gets better.

Cedric shifted against the wall and winced. "We need to hide better."

Lucard looked toward the cave entrance. Rainwater ran down like a curtain outside. "The rain helps."

"Not enough."

"I know."

Elowen looked between them. "Will Alan still chase us?"

Cedric laughed weakly, then coughed from the pain. "We stole his possible Seventh Circle chance. Yes. He will chase us."

Lucard’s eyes stayed on the rain. "Then we recover before he finds us."

"And if he finds us first?" Elowen asked.

Lucard did not answer. Because right now, the answer was ugly.