I Level Up Dragons with My Evolution System-Chapter 87: What a shitty world...

Edward was suddenly pulled hard by the arm, at the same time as Arnold... Aurora ran past at full speed. "Run, don’t stop!" she roared.

Although she was strong, she was carrying two heavy people, so her steps were slow and she stumbled until she fell to the ground, but managed to get several meters away.

Arnold was able to get up; he was the least injured and ran, obeying Aurora’s instructions. He didn’t understand why he had tried to save Edward before... that wasn’t his style.

He needed to save himself, you know!

Edward, for his part, just saw that Aurora was a little too close to the Lich, who was already preparing a spell... she wouldn’t be able to dodge it. Fear gripped him and he trembled, but he stopped hesitating...

"I won’t die, and I won’t let anyone else die here." He roared. He immediately pointed his hand at the Lich.

"Incineration Pollen." He roared with a blood-filled growl, feeling his body burn with fire inside. He no longer had much energy, so he couldn’t rely on other spells. Only the ability of his badly wounded butterfly could do anything here.

His butterfly reappeared and leaped at its target... it was wounded, of course. But it wasn’t afraid.

This was its greatest enemy... it was an undead! It would never lose to an undead, no matter how strong it was!

[Undead marked.]

[Damage Multiplied: activated.]

[The Lich is rapidly losing health]

Just then, the Lich’s magic shot out. Unable to be intercepted, it ended up hitting the Fire Butterfly’s body fiercely... it was fire magic, nothing it feared... or so it thought.

But the deadly attributes inside it meant that even it could not resist in its current state. Its injuries were severe, and it ended up being engulfed by that fire.

Edward felt even more pain than he already did, the urge to let out a cry of pain overwhelmed him, but he endured it and ran towards Aurora, helped her up, and they both ran away from there together...

"Aghh..." He gritted his teeth, tried to summon his butterfly back, but failed to do so in time. Suddenly, the pain multiplied, telling him that his fire butterfly was dead...

Or more precisely, it had been wounded to such an extent that it would take a long time to recover.

He let out a terrifying scream, but continued running with blood-stained eyes, while Aurora helped him and Arnold tried to clear a path for them.

The system alerted him to something, but he was so dizzy that he couldn’t see what it was. He just focused on running as fast as he could to get out of the mine.

At some point, he collapsed to the ground.

---

Edward’s eyes opened heavily, not understanding what was happening. He looked up and saw a dark brown reinforced ceiling.

His gaze moved to the right, where there was nothing but a few tables surrounding his bed, with various operating tools and some healing potions. He couldn’t understand what they were.

He looked to his left...

There, the exhausted figure of Aurora, leaning back in a very uncomfortable chair, greeted him.

He tried to get up suddenly, but felt a sharp pain in his abdomen that made him fall back onto the bed.

His movement woke Aurora from her short sleep, and she looked at him.

"Ed!" She immediately got up, but instead of trying to help him up, she pushed him further back onto the bed. "Don’t get up, you’re recovering."

He looked at her, confused. "What happened?"

"You fainted towards the end of the mission. We’re in Silver City," she replied and handed him some water. "Here, take this. I’ve been told you should drink plenty of water."

Edward frowned. "How long has it been?" Even talking was painful.

"Only two days."

"Two? That’s quite a long time..." He gritted his teeth against the pain and looked at himself. "Why does it hurt so much?"

That’s when he noticed that part of his body was stitched up and covered in healing potions.

"This is..."

"You were so badly injured inside that the blood in your mouth prevented the potions from going down. The doctors had to cut you open to spray it inside. Your organs... to tell you the truth, it’s amazing that they recovered, they were almost charred. For a moment I thought you were going to die." She clenched her hands tightly and lowered her head.

Edward wasn’t surprised by that, although the fact that they had to cut him open was astonishing.

"The mission..."

"We had to cancel it, although technically we completed it. We’ll have to wait and see what the instructors say."

Edward nodded and looked up at the ceiling. "The miners?"

"Only a few died, but most are alive and well, with minor injuries," she said and lowered her head. "The uncle isn’t among them."

Edward nodded once more. "I suspected as much."

He took a deep breath before speaking again. "Arnold, is he okay?"

At this point, Aurora turned her head slightly, instinctively drawing Edward’s attention.

"What is it?" he asked loudly.

"It’s not what you think, he’s alive," Aurora replied hastily, realizing she had made a mistake. "It’s just that... he can’t use magic or his beast... I don’t know for how long, even he doesn’t know. He’s currently recovering and trying to understand what happened to his power."

Edward frowned. "What do the doctors say? Or is it because his beast was destroyed during the mission? Won’t he need to recover it in order to cast magic?"

Aurora shook her head. "He says he has lost his beast in combat several times, but he has never been deprived of the ability to use magic. The little he can tell us is that he feels chains on his spirit that are binding him and his summoned beast."

"Chains?" Edward looked at her, shocked. "A curse?"

"I suspect it’s a curse spell cast by that Lich. But we’ll have to wait until we get back for the specialists to check it out." She nodded.

A long sigh escaped Edward’s mouth as he let the conversation drop. Silence returned to the room, where only the sound of each other’s breathing could be heard.

After several minutes of silence, Edward finally decided to talk about what was tormenting his mind.

"Lander, he..." He couldn’t finish his words out of fear.

Aurora also had difficulty responding. They hadn’t worked together for long, but she knew he was a good friend of Edward’s; at least they trained together and worked well as a team. Besides, something like this happening to an ally would never feel right.

"We couldn’t even recover his body." She sighed, pained. "Seeing the gravity of the situation and confirming that there were more of them than expected, and that they came from a Cursed Land, the local armed forces had to request help from other cities and went in, but they found nothing. It’s possible that..."

"It’s okay..." Edward interrupted her and didn’t let her finish speaking. "I understand."

He had only had a small glimmer of hope that he was okay... that he had been saved or that what he saw wasn’t really his death. Unfortunately, most wishes don’t come true, especially when you’re weak.

He had to understand that, even though he didn’t have the courage to try to comprehend it.

A person with whom he had shared many hours of training and several missions had died. He hadn’t known him for long, but he felt that they had faced death together, and that was enough to make him fond of him.

Aurora understood his current state of mind. It wasn’t that she was made of iron and felt nothing, it was just that she had long since shielded her heart when she realized that, in this world, companions are as fleeting as the wind.

One day you have them and share many good moments with them, but the next day you may not even have the ability to give them a proper burial.

This is the world they had to live in; it’s cruel, it’s inhuman, nothing that happens here makes much sense, and everyone seems to be dancing in the palm of someone superior’s hand, but that’s the way the world is.

They can only accept it and live with it, face it as it is, and try to survive.

Edward and Aurora sighed deeply at the same time, after more than ten minutes of silence.

"Help me up, I want to walk a little," said Edward.

Aurora quickly approached him and helped him up. "Don’t overexert yourself, these kinds of injuries need to heal slowly. The general told us we could rest here until we can travel back," she said.

"It’s okay, don’t worry. My body is much tougher than you think, I’ll be able to recover well."

They both went out into the corridors, which were deserted. "Where is this?"

"The armed forces hospital."

"And it’s all alone?"

"When soldiers are wounded, they don’t usually have many options, Ed. There’s a rule among soldiers that your instructors will teach you at some point: The wounded have feelings, but they also have flesh and weight..."

Edward frowned. "Don’t go on..." he said. "I understand what you mean."

He didn’t want to hear any more and could only say to himself: What a shitty world...