His left leg was still cramping. As he watched his thigh muscles, he could see the skin trembling like ripples on water.
He transferred the sword hilt from his right hand to his left. His left hand gripped the hilt and supported most of his weight, freeing his right hand.
He reached his right hand into the inside pocket of his white coat.
That pocket.
The pocket where he kept things.
Before entering the Bamboo Forest, he had put a small bottle in it, a tiny glass bottle no bigger than his thumb.
He had never used it in the Bamboo Forest-not because he had forgotten, but because the time had not come.
Now he took the bottle out.
The glass bottle looked small and fragile in his palm, covered in wounds and fluid. The liquid inside was clear, colorless and odorless, like a solidified drop of water that did not belong to this world amid the dark red mist.
Guy saw the bottle from the edge of the pit.
His eyes instantly widened.
"Chisen! What is that?"
Chisen did not answer.
He bit out the stopper-the tiny wooden stopper in the glass bottle-and spat it away. It tumbled through the dark red mist and vanished onto the surface of the gelatinous substance.
He brought the mouth of the bottle to his lips.
"Chisen!! What are you doing!!"
Chisen poured the liquid into his mouth.
He did not swallow it.
He held it there.
He held it in his mouth, letting the liquid spread through his oral cavity. It tasted of nothing.
Nothing at all.
Like a mouthful of water.
But thicker, stickier, and colder than water.
Not the cold of ice, but the coolness of mint, a hundred times stronger.
That coolness spread from his mouth to his throat,