“It’s so pitiful…”
Beside her, Misha wiped away her tears and let out a soft sigh.
Clearly, it wasn’t just Everly—even Misha had been deeply moved by the whale’s mournful cries before death.
“Everly, can you help send it back into the sea?” she asked pitifully, looking at Everly.
After resting earlier, Everly had recovered quite a bit of her energy. Raising a wave to push the stranded whale back into the ocean really wouldn’t be difficult for her.
Everly was willing to help the whale before them, but she had another concern. “I can do it, but its injuries are too severe. Even if we send it back into the ocean, it probably won’t survive.”
Hearing that, Misha also felt a pang of sorrow.
Humans are complicated creatures. When it cos to their own kind, they often struggle to be completely open and trusting, with barriers and wariness inevitably appearing between them. Yet toward animals that also possess high intelligence and social behavior, humans can easily project emotions onto them and empathize with them.
Whales—despite their enormous size—move slowly and have gentle temperants, making them exactly the kind of species people tend to feel affection for.
Although the whale before them looked sowhat different from the whales commonly seen in docuntaries, there was no denying that it was truly beautiful.
Its massive body, though covered in wounds, still carried an indescribable elegance. Its translucent spiny fins resembled flawless ice crystals and colored glaze, while its cries, filled with complex emotion, possessed a power that could deeply move the heart.
A creature that seed like a miracle of life lay dying on the beach, disfigured and waiting hopelessly for death. The scene perfectly embodied the worldly idea of “beautiful, powerful, and tragic”—like a breathtaking painting rendered with sorrow and death as its pignts, impossible not to mourn over.
Everly took the glass vial containing the panacea from around her neck and hesitated.
Back then, she had received a total of thirty-three drops of the panacea. She had given so to her grandfather, Misha, and Orff, used a little herself, and now only had nine drops left.
This was a life-saving dicine that could turn the tide at a critical mont. Every three to five drops was practically equivalent to an extra life.
Was she really going to use sothing so precious on a creature she had never even t before?
Everly fell into hesitation.
“Woof-woo!”
Her fingertips accidentally brushed against the canine tooth hanging beside the vial, and suddenly, Buddy’s bark rang out by her ear.
The tooth had originally hung from her wrist as a bracelet charm. When danger struck on the bus, worried that she might lose the bracelet, Everly had removed the charm and tucked it into her mouth. Afterward, lacking any proper string, she had temporarily tied the tooth and the panacea together around her neck with a piece of yarn.
Had that bark just now been a hallucination, or had it really sounded?
“Buddy?” Everly asked uncertainly, gripping the warm canine tooth in her hand.
“What is it? What’s wrong, Everly?”
“Woof! Woof-woo!”
Alongside Misha’s curious question ca the spirited bark of a dog.
Unlike the sharp, urgent barking Buddy used to warn of danger, this bark was gentle yet strong—like companionship, like silent encouragent.
As mories of all the monts they had shared surfaced in her mind, a warm current flowed through Everly’s chest, and a faint smile appeared on her face.
“What is it… do you think I should save it?”
She had only asked tentatively, yet Buddy actually gave a response.
“Woof! Woof-woo!”
Everly froze for a mont.
She rembered the night of the ritual in Tunumo Village. That night, it had been Buddy’s strangely intelligent barking that woke her from sleep. It was also Buddy who had guided her all the way to the sacred tree of the Winton tribe, allowing her to stop a man-made disaster in ti. Indirectly, she had saved both the sacred tree and the Native Aricans present there, earning the friendship of the Winton people.
Could Buddy’s barking now be another kind of guidance?
The mont the thought crossed her mind, Everly no longer cared whether it was wasteful or not.
Buddy was an incredibly, incredibly smart dog. He had never done anything that would harm his owner. Since even Buddy thought she should save the whale, there had to be a reason for it. She had to save it!
When Wester had given her the panacea, he said that depending on the severity of the injuries, three to five drops would be enough to completely heal soone.
But the whale was enormous, and she had no idea whether that amount of dicine would even be enough…
After a mont of thought, Everly decided to do it little by little.
She gestured for Misha to wait, then pulled out a half-empty bottle of mineral water from the backpack on her back. She dripped three drops of the panacea into it and shook the bottle.
After all, her panacea hadn’t fallen from the sky. Every drop used was one less remaining. Completely healing the whale before returning it to the sea counted as saving it—but treating it enough that it could recover on its own after being returned to the ocean also counted as saving it.
No matter the situation, frugality was always a good habit. Never underestimate the healing ability of wild animals!
After shaking the bottle for a short while and waiting for the dicine to dissolve into the water, Everly gripped the bottle and cautiously took a step toward the whale.
“Woooo—!”
On the beach, sensing her approach, the stranded whale opened its mouth and let out a low cry.
It was very strange. Even though Everly knew nothing about whales, she could sohow tell from the tone and vibration of the sound that it represented warning and vigilance.
It was wary of her—a human.
“Don’t be afraid. I just want to give you so dicine…” Even though it was probably pointless, Everly still spoke instinctively, trying to soothe it with a gentle voice.
Unexpectedly, before she could even finish speaking, the whale suddenly flared open the fins on its back and sides. Sharp bone spines rose one after another, while its mouth full of pointed teeth opened incredibly wide in an obvious threatening posture. It looked as though, if Everly dared co any closer, it would bite her to death in a single gulp.
The whale’s fins were pressed against the sand, and when it suddenly moved, sand was thrown everywhere, covering Everly’s head and face.
“Pah, pah-pah!”
Everly spat out the sand that had flown into her mouth. She wasn’t exactly angry—the whale looked far too pitiful for that, and the sand hadn’t actually hurt her.
She was just troubled.
If the whale resisted this much, then she really didn’t dare approach carelessly. After all, it was simply too huge. A creature that massive could crush a weak, helpless human into paste just by casually flicking its tail or lunging forward with its body, like a collapsing mountain.
And the whale was obviously a carnivore. Its mouth was lined with two rows of dense, sharp teeth, each one as large as Everly’s palm, with tips curving slightly inward. Under the sunlight they looked like enormous hooks. If she were accidentally bitten, Everly figured she wouldn’t even have ti to swallow the panacea before being bitten clean in half.
Even when doing a good deed, you still had to pay attention to safety!
Thinking this, Everly temporarily stopped moving forward and stood at a safe distance. She looked around, rummaged through her backpack for a mont, and finally fixed her gaze on an unused condom inside the bag.
The condom had originally been used for storing water. During the drifting journey over the past two days, the boiled water inside had all been drunk by Everly and Misha, so the condom had been retired and carefully tucked away in the backpack.
Although wasting a condom made Everly reluctant, well… what could she do? This whale was just too stubborn. It couldn’t understand human speech, and if they kept wasting ti like this, what if it died from its injuries? Then wouldn’t her bottle of diluted panacea be wasted for nothing?
With that thought, Everly stopped hesitating.
She took the condom out of the bag and, carrying both it and the water bottle, circled around to the side facing the whale’s belly.
This whale had not stranded itself belly-down. Its body was stuck in a sowhat strange slanted position, lying on its side with its pale belly exposed in a shallow depression on the beach. Because of this, only one of the whale’s eyes—the one facing upward—was visible, allowing it to see the large area in front of it at an angle and the region toward its back.
The direction Everly approached from was the side the whale’s belly faced, which happened to be a blind spot in the giant creature’s field of vision.
Even so, she still didn’t dare get too close. Instead, she deliberately ran to a distant spot beyond the whale’s reach, crouched down at the edge of the beach, and used the condom to scoop up a huge amount of seawater. Then she poured in the mineral water mixed with the panacea that she had shaken evenly earlier.
After tying a knot at the top of the condom, a huge wobbling water balloon suddenly appeared in Everly’s hands.
Then, keeping both hands behind her back and using her body to completely conceal the water balloon, she took a wide detour and returned to the whale’s field of vision, attempting to approach once more.
The whale was already extrely weak, but the mont it saw the approaching two-legged creature, it still gathered all its remaining strength to open its mouth and display a bluffing, threatening posture at Everly.
Everly, anwhile, seized that fleeting opportunity. Raising the water balloon with both hands and aiming at the whale’s open mouth, she used a standard throwing motion and hurled it with all her strength straight into the whale’s mouth.
“Pop!”
The condom was not brand new. After floating in the ocean for days while filled with boiled water, its elasticity had long since deteriorated, and Everly had now stuffed it full of water again. The instant it struck the whale’s tongue, the fragile latex burst apart. The seawater, fresh water, and panacea mixture inside spilled out with a splash and flowed down the sloping passage deep into the whale’s throat.
The whale clearly resisted the suspicious liquid suddenly pouring into its throat. But it had been stranded on the beach for too long—its body was weak and severely dehydrated. Even though it knew sothing was wrong with the liquid, it still could not stop it from flowing into its body.
In theory, the panacea only needed to co into contact with the mucous mbranes in the mouth to take effect imdiately.
Barely ten seconds after entering the whale’s body, visible changes began to appear in its grueso wounds as they started to heal.
The most obvious was a deep gash that cut down to the bone.
Everly saw that, in the deepest part of the wound, delicate new flesh began to grow outward. It intertwined and fused like vines, repairing itself, until even the outer layer of dark, smooth skin, under so invisible force, sealed together as neatly as a zipper being pulled shut.
Aside from that wound, the crater-like puncture injuries also began to push out small brass-colored tal fragnts. Flesh regenerated, and skin closed over.
Earlier, Everly had found those small circular pits oddly familiar. Seeing the tiny particles fall out of the wounds, she suddenly realized—they were bullet holes!
No wonder the whale had reacted so aggressively toward her; its injuries had actually been caused by humans!
The panacea was extrely effective, but it was not omnipotent.
As ti passed, Everly gradually noticed that the injuries being repaired were mainly the life-threatening wounds and the severe bullet penetrations. The other minor injuries—small cuts and scrapes, as well as a few seemingly frightening but superficial abrasions—were not healing on their own.
If she wanted to fully cure it, she would probably need to administer another two drops of the dicine.
However, the remaining injuries should be manageable with the strong natural healing ability of wild animals. Everly felt it probably wasn’t worth wasting another condom for this.
Co to think of it, the condom she had just thrown should still be inside the whale’s mouth… If she left it alone, would the whale accidentally swallow it? Maybe it would be better to take it out…
“Woooo—!”
While Everly was lost in her random thoughts, the great whale closed its mouth and once again let out a long, resonant cry.
This ti, the sound was noticeably gentler than before—low and deep, carrying a special resonance within its body, evoking the rhythm of earth’s veins and the surging of ocean tides.
Everly noticed that the whale’s previously flared, aggressive fins had sohow folded inward like fans, no longer sharp and threatening as before.
She stood still for a mont, carefully observing it, then cautiously took a step forward.
The whale slowly quieted down and did not cry out again.
But it also showed no further signs of resistance…
Did that an she could… touch it?
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