Merlin hurried back to camp. It was one thing to venture further into the woods alone, it was another to expose himself to an armed creature, regardless of whether it was bleeding or not. The Tower wasn’t Earth, and even though, technically, it was all a simulation, since it had been cleared already, it was still a test. He had to do the right things at the right time so that he didn’t compel a professor to force quit the test. Thankfully, besides the System converting the test to a quest, it was yet to enter a rebellious phase like it had done with the knights in his physical assessment test. Everything was good for now, hopefully it stayed that way, but he had a hand to play in that.

  However, leaving the dragonman unattended was not the wisest of options too. It was possible that before Merlin was able to explain the situation to the rest of his team and bring them to the location of the dragonman, it would have sauntered away. Which was why he had left Blue to watch over the dragonman, serving as his eyes and ears. If the dragonman moved, Blue would follow, pinpoint its new location, then rush over to Merlin and alert him.

  That was the plan.

  Merlin bumbled out of the woods to meet the fire they had lit in the center of their camp on the verge of losing its kindle, and everyone still sound asleep. He paused to catch his breath as he thought of who he was to wake first. He obviously couldn’t start screaming for everyone to get up. That would be abrasive and rude of him. So he made his decision not long after. Senior Hyunwoo was a guy like he was; it was easier to walk into a fellow man’s tent and wake him up than a lady’s. In other words, he passed on heading to Senior Sun-Hee first.

  “Merlin?” Senior Hyunwoo said groggily as he sat up. His hair was a mess, but that much was to be expected when one slept on grass. “Is there a problem?”

  “I found something,” said Merlin. “In the woods.”

  Senior Hyunwoo cleared his eyes and shook his head, shaking his apparent exhaustion away.

  “What did you find?” he asked as he reached for his Grimoire and his pouch, strapping them to his waist. Merlin hadn’t seen it before—hadn’t actually been bothered to spy on the lad’s Grimoire actually—but it was dark-brown, the color of a C-Class Mage’s Grimoire.

  For a moment there, Merlin’s mind flew back to the words of Kim Yiseo’s father: Guildmaster Hyeonki, back at the Consortium Guild. He still couldn’t believe that his mana had been leveling up just as he did, and now he had the same mana as a C-Class Mage. And that couldn’t even compare to the fact that he had almost attuned to a Hex, whatever had happened there. Honestly, the Guildmaster being yet to contact him was eating into him fiercely. But there was nothing he could do about it. And, right now, he had something more important to focus on.

  “A humanoid dragon,” Merlin replied to Senior Hyunwoo’s question with the simplest description he could think of. “It held a spear, and was injured. I think it’s, maybe, the warrior of a certain tribe in this Tower.”

  Senior Hyunwoo blinked and immediately rose to his feet. “Wake your mates. I’ll get Sun-Hee.”

  Merlin nodded and bolted out of Senior Hyunwoo’s tent. He rushed into his fellow guys’ tents first, waking them up, and used the racket that ensued from their murmuring to wake the girls up. Then they all gathered around the pile of charred wood that remained from the bonfire having lost its light.

  “As you all have heard,” Senior Hyunwoo started, “Merlin found something. A surviving species in all this desolation. We all haven’t been in a Tower before, but, like I said, unlike a Dungeon, it’s comparable to a city. What I’m trying to say is, the creature Merlin saw, will most likely be a single one from a hamlet. To find out how to clear this Tower, we’ll have to communicate with it like we would a person if we migrated from one country to another.”

  “So, it’s not a monster?” Park Yuri asked as she dug her fingers into her blonde hair, smoothening it before packing it with a hair tie, her expression as serious as ever.

  “I’m not sure what to call it,” said Senior Hyunwoo. “Technically, it is a monster. But monsters are also characterized by wanting to harm us humans at first sight. It’s wired into their brains. Just like how a lion’s first instinct when it sees a deer is to hunt it. If we can communicate with this…dragonman…then maybe it would be harsh of us to classify it as a monster.”

  Park Yuri’s question was also something Merlin had been bothered by. He was well satisfied with Senior Hyunwoo’s answer, and Park Yuri was the same.

  “Does anyone have anything to say?” Senior Hyunwoo asked. They all shook their heads. He turned to his mate. “Sun-Hee?” She shook her head as well. “All right, then. Here’s the plan.”

  ###

  Thankfully, the dragonman had not moved from the spot Merlin had found it in. However, its situation had gotten worse. Its head had fallen to the side, unlike how it had just been jerked backward, and, Merlin could swear, it looked pale. On the other hand, Blue had taken it upon himself to fly across to the dragonman and temporarily prevent its bleeding by freezing the gaping hole in its abdomen.

  Merlin had never been so proud of his dragon before. It was nice having a smart being as a partner.

  “Woah…” Daniel gasped at the sight of the dragonman. “It’s really a dragonman.”

  That was an acceptable reaction. Merlin had been the same way, even if just for a split moment.

  “It’s unconscious,” said Senior Sun-Hee as they all walked into the puddle of a field where the dragon was passed out underneath the light of the blue light raining down from the sky. “We don’t need the plan anymore.”

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  Senior Hyunwoo simply pursed his lips and nodded.

  Merlin gestured for Blue to return to him at that moment, and the little dragon didn’t hesitate for even a split second. He flew across the rest of the team and then landed on Merlin’s shoulder.

  Merlin was about to rub the dragon’s head, praise him for a good job, when Senior Sun-Hee’s gaze flashed in his direction. His heart almost leapt out of his throat.

  Had Blue stopped hiding his presence? Or had she simply sensed him?

  Then she pointed at the thin layer of ice over the dragonman’s wound.

  “Did you do this?” she asked.

  Merlin blinked in relief, then shook his head. “No. I met him that way.”

  She turned back to the dragonman and narrowed her eyes. “It’s fresh,” she said. “The ice. I think some other thing was here. It would have taken you at least ten to twenty minutes to hurry back to the camp, wake us, and bring us here. The smoke coming from the ice shouldn’t exist anymore. Something else was here.”

  Merlin gulped. Sensitive, much?

  “Anyway,” Senior Hyunwoo chimed in, “let’s take it back to camp as intended. Did anyone bring any first aid amongst their packing?”

  “I did,” said Sofia with a hand slightly raised.

  Merlin wouldn’t lie, he was impressed. She came off to him as someone who was well prepared for things like this, but he guessed that was to be expected when her and her dad were quite the hikers. First aid came with the territory.

  “How are we to be certain the chemicals from our world will be applicable to it?” asked Park Yuri as she let her eyes peruse the shiny red scales of the dragonman, obviously invested in it more than necessary.

  Merlin realized that they hadn’t even talked much ever since the current term had started. He began to wonder if he had offended her in any way. He would have to ask later on then.

  “We’ll have to find that out back at camp,” Senior Sun-Hee replied on the behalf of Senior Hyunwoo. Park Yuri didn’t add anything. She simply took a step back as Senior Sun-Hee turned her attention to the men present. “Well, get on with it already.”

  Senior Hyunwoo’s attention snapped back. He hurried towards the dragonman and lifted it onto his back. Man-Shik took it upon himself to take hold of the dragonman’s spear, and they all hurried back to camp, where Merlin found out, again, that Sofia was also adept at administering first aid.

  Park Yuri summoned a finger of flame which she used to melt off the ice, then Sofia used the scoop of water Daniel had brought from the stream with a bar of soap to cleanse the stab wound. Apparently, it wasn’t too deep, so it hadn’t punctured anything that would have threatened the dragonman’s life. However, the dragonman had bled excessively, so his life was, well, being threatened regardless.

  She then took out an ointment and applied it over the wound once she was done with the cleaning, and covered it up with a bandage.

  Merlin blinked. “Isn’t there a process missing?” he asked, unable to hold back his curiosity.

  Everyone’s eyes flashed towards him.

  Sofia raised her brows. “Huh? Is there?”

  “Uhm… I think,” Merlin began. “You didn’t use hydrogen peroxide to clean it as well,” he said.

  There was silence, besides the indistinct sounds of whatever made up the insects in this region and Tower, as everyone shifted their attention back to Sofia. Then…Sofia laughed.

  Merlin cocked his head, dumbfounded. Had he said something funny.

  “Sorry,” said Sofia as she wiped a tear off her eye. “It was just kind of funny because I heard your parents were surgeons so I didn’t expect you not to know.”

  “Know what?” Merlin’s brows furrowed.

  “Well, contrary to popular belief, using hydrogen peroxide, or even alcohol, to clean wounds actually slows down healing. They damage the tissues.”

  Merlin blinked owlishly. “I see,” he mumbled. Perhaps he needed to have paid more attention to what his parents were involved in instead of throwing tantrums.

  Due to the great amount of blood loss the dragonman had experienced, it took a whole day before it finally woke up. Sofia, who had taken it upon herself to watch it, taking care of its wound in intervals, called for everyone else when that happened. They all rushed to her tent just in time to see the dragonman’s eyes slowly open, revealing golden iris and a slitted pupil.

  It took only a brief second for the dragonman to regain its senses. With a flinch, it instantly reached for its side, obviously seeking out its spear, but its three fingers found nothing. Senior Hyunwoo brought out a makeshift flag he had made with a branch and his white handkerchief. A Tower was another world entirely from Earth, but even across worlds, the effectiveness of a white flag as a sign of peace was impeccable.

  Though the dragonman didn’t completely settle down, it looked at them with lesser intensity in its gaze than it had had a moment ago. And that was further helped by the fact that it noticed its wound had been taken care of when it glanced to its side after it had hurt slightly. It flayed its eyes over them, narrowing it slightly.

  “We’re not trying to hurt you,” said Senior Hyunwoo as he waved the flag around. “If you don’t mind, can you answer some of our questions?”

  The dragonman only stared back, its eyes narrowing even further. Everyone watched it, curious as to what it would say, how its voice would sound—anything. It was the first time any one of them had tried to communicate with…a monster? Merlin wasn’t sure what to refer to the dragonman as.

  However, it said nothing, only blinked.

  Senior Hyunwoo cleared his throat, perhaps assuming that was a yes. “For starters,” he continued. “What’s your name? I’m Seo Hyunwoo. Nice to meet you.”

  The dragonman, once again, only stared back.

  Senior Hyunwoo leaned back. “Perhaps it can’t understand us. That would be a problem.”

  Merlin sighed. It seemed they had come to a stalemate. Once again, he was lost as to what to do since Towers had not existed in Singularity Mage.

  He tried to consider what Kieran would do in such a situation where he couldn’t communicate with a different race. What was the best way to pass their questions across? Sign language? But that too would be no different from them trying to speak their languages. Sign language was drawn from the basics after all.

  Merlin fell into his thoughts, his gaze growing distant as the murmurs around him muffled out. That was, until Blue purred softly from his shoulders and he snapped back to see the dragonman staring straight at him, or, rather, alternating its gaze between Blue and him.

  Merlin flinched softly, his chest caving in.

  The dragonman could see Blue.

  And then the dragonman narrowed its eyes, and Merlin was taken even more aback as a familiar blue screen flashed into his view, though there was nothing familiar about the words it brought.

  [Specie: Drachen, wants to communicate with you.]

  [Enable Telepathic translation?]

  [Yes?/No?]

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