Show Me Your Stats!-Chapter 138

"The bleeding was quite severe, but fortunately, it doesn't appear to be life-threatening."

The physician who examined Nilma Argan spoke in astonishment.

"Whoever treated him did an excellent job. Normally, with such severe abdominal injuries, there's hardly any chance of survival—but the bleeding was minimal, and the patient's condition is stable."

Well, of course. As Ayra stared blankly at him, her gaze met that of Nilma Argan, who shivered violently with a pale face.

When Ayra had first seen the wound, Argan's condition had been grave. His lips and nails were so pale they’d turned bluish, his heart rate was alarmingly fast, his breathing shallow, and a puddle of blood was forming beneath him. Ayra had seen her share of badly injured people back in the labyrinth. Judging from that experience, Argan was in such critical condition that he could have stopped breathing in just a few more minutes. His remaining HP had barely hovered around 200, and even that was dropping rapidly by the second.

Without hesitation, {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} Ayra had immediately opened her subspace storage. The medical technology of the labyrinth, where reincarnators and transmigrators from various worlds gathered, was quite advanced. Thanks to that, she had managed to stock up her subspace with high-quality medical tools by this world’s standards.

Given the severity of the injury, death by pain-induced shock rather than blood loss was entirely possible, so Ayra had first doused the wound in a local anesthetic. Then she rummaged through her subspace and pulled out a disinfectant. Nilma Argan, still in a state of panic, trembled as he stared wide-eyed while Ayra poured a greenish disinfectant all over his abdomen.

"W-What... what are you doing...?"

Argan asked in a tearful, terrified voice, but Ayra, focused entirely on the wound, ignored him and gave a command to Jinas.

"Jinas, clear the area."

"Yes, my lord."

As Jinas hurried to drive the onlookers away, Ayra pulled out a blanket, spread it on the ground, and erected a small tent. Once the tent was up, it blocked out the unsanitary snow and dust blowing down on them. Janus, who had been watching with interest, tried to peek inside and stepped into the tent—at which point Nilma Argan finally noticed the blood-soaked man and screamed as if about to faint. Once he realized the other person was that dragon, he could barely breathe.

"U-Uwaaaaah...!"

"No fainting yet. I already gave you anesthetic, so if you stop breathing during the procedure, you'll really die. There's no blood transfusion or oxygen tank here, you know. Come on, open your mouth and take a deep breath."

The moment Ayra said “die,” Argan snapped his mouth open, and Ayra quickly poured a stimulant into it to keep him conscious. After confirming he had swallowed, she conjured a bright orb of light. Without wasting a second, she cut away the blood-soaked clothing around the wound into a neat square. Under the light, as blood bubbled out from the wound, Nilma Argan's face turned ghostly white.

“W-Wait... Just a moment, please...”

Seeing a handful of metallic tools emerge from Ayra’s subspace, Argan panicked and begged in fright. He squirmed so much that Ayra, annoyed, snapped her fingers, and his flailing limbs were immediately pinned flat to the ground. Without the slightest change in expression, she examined the wound, then began to stitch the bleeding area with red thread.

That first round of treatment significantly slowed the rate at which Argan’s HP was dropping, but the bleeding still hadn’t fully stopped. Ayra had a decent grasp of basic medical knowledge, but whether in her previous life or this one, she had never been a professional doctor, so she frowned.

“What is this? Where is the bleeding coming from?”

Unfazed by Argan's wheezing as though he might die any second, Ayra pulled out an unidentified liquid from her subspace. Dipping a brush into it, she painted the liquid directly onto his skin. Argan immediately let out a blood-curdling scream. Thanks to the anesthetic, he shouldn’t have been able to feel pain—but anyone who heard him might think he was being tortured.

“AAAHHH! MY SKIN! MY SKIN IS MELTING!”

“Don’t be dramatic. It’s not melting—it’s just turning transparent. It’ll return to normal... eventually.”

Probably about an 80% chance...

“Anyway, better to have transparent skin than to die, right?”

Ayra tried to soothe him with a few half-hearted pats, but it didn’t seem like Argan heard a word. Meanwhile, Janus was practically sparkling with interest as he peered at the wound. Where Ayra had applied the brush once, the skin had turned transparent. A second coat revealed the fatty layer, and with a third, the muscles beneath became visible.

This was a modified version of a reagent Ayra had once tested on a magician named Achang in the labyrinth. Compared to the original, this one was much safer. When Janus poked the transparent skin with his finger, Argan convulsed and screamed again.

“That’s fascinating.”

“Don’t touch—it’ll get contaminated.”

When Ayra sprayed disinfectant on the area Janus had touched, he made a displeased little hum. He gave Argan a brief glare, then quickly turned his attention back to Ayra's work. As Ayra became absorbed in examining the wound again, Janus sneakily dabbed a bit of the reagent onto Argan’s chest. Witnessing the sight of his own heart—something no ordinary person should ever see—Argan became so terrified that he couldn’t even scream, gasping for air instead.

After confiscating the reagent from Janus, Ayra was finally able to spot the exact source of the bleeding beneath the transparent skin layers. She used magic to open a bit of space inside the abdomen and gently guided a red-threaded needle into the area.

Argan, barely clinging to consciousness, cursed, sobbed, and pleaded. It sounded like he was yelling things like “Fuck, give me my skin back!” or “Please save me, you lunatics!” or “No, just kill me already!” But Ayra knew full well that patients with major blood loss tended to become delirious, so she let it go in one ear and out the other.

After applying the reagent two or three more times, Ayra finally located the last bleeding point. Once she sutured it cleanly, the bleeding stopped completely and the HP loss slowed to a crawl. After closing the final gash, she withdrew her magic. Argan fumbled at his now-transparent skin, panting—and then, as the stimulant wore off, promptly fainted.

Only after that did Ayra move Argan to a guest room and summon a physician. Having successfully saved someone’s life with her expert treatment, she felt a quiet sense of pride. She’d beaten a 20% chance of failure, the transparent skin had returned to normal, and despite the severity of the injuries, Argan had already regained consciousness. His HP was steadily recovering as well.

“Hoho, the treatment was so thorough that there’s nothing more for me to do. As long as he eats well and rests, he should recover nicely. I’ll take my leave now.”

“Mmh. Thank you for your help.”

As the physician picked up his bag and rose to leave, the still-pale Argan flailed in bed. After all that, he didn’t look thrilled about being left alone with Ayra. Ayra made a small effort to consider it from his point of view. Thinking about it, even if it hadn’t hurt much, the mental trauma probably ran deep. She could kind of understand.

“W-Wait...”

He was about to beg not to be left alone but ran out of strength and paused to catch his breath. In that moment, the doctor walked out the door. And in his place came the dragon, his body freshly rinsed of blood and water dripping from his hair. Argan, who knew full well what the man was, momentarily stopped breathing. Janus, now clean, stood slouched and opened his mouth.

“We need to talk.”

“Wait. Let me talk to him first...”

Ayra had temporarily forgotten Janus’s comment about being her mate. She trailed off as it came back to her. Janus plopped down on the edge of the bed, and Argan recoiled like he was about to have a seizure. But none of them seemed particularly concerned for the patient.

While treating Argan’s wounds, Ayra had been able to mentally organize the chaos in her head. She listed out her priorities: the assassin, Nilma Argan, and Janus. And of the three, Janus was clearly the top priority. After some thought, she changed her mind.

“No... You’re right. Let’s talk.”

From behind Janus, Nilma Argan murmured in a voice as tiny as an ant, “Um... excuse me...” but no one heard him.

“So, you said I might be your mate?”

Regaining her calm, Ayra asked levelly. She hadn’t caught it before, but recalling it now, Janus hadn’t said “You’re my mate.” He’d said, “I think you might be.” At that, the trembling Argan let out a small hiccup and fell completely silent.

“Yeah. I think you might be my mate.”

At those words, Ayra stayed quiet for a moment. With her lips pressed together, she deliberated on what to ask first, then calmly inquired.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you this anyway... When dragons choose a mate, is it because they can’t kill them?”

With Janus’s favorability sitting at 50, Ayra had seen countless death-choice windows and hostility warnings pop up. It was impossible not to notice. If dragons picked mates based on the inability to kill them, then everything made sense.

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“They say they’re searching for a mate, but they go around slaughtering people until they find them. Then once they do... that poor person ends up being someone who watched the dragon kill their family or friends. There’s no way anyone could love them after that.”

If Ayra imagined Janus murdering her family or retainers, she didn’t think she could ever offer him any affection. As she waited, Janus slowly curled the corners of his lips into a smile—and then nodded.

“To be precise, it’s not that we can’t kill them. It’s more like... we don’t want to. Dragons who kill their own mate are extremely rare.”