Chapter 5
At the commander’s outburst, the once chaotic hospital room fell silent in an instant. Even the soldiers, who had been groaning and lamenting their impending death, clamped their mouths shut, blinking under the officer’s stern voice.
Debert pressed himself against the wall to hide his back, his eyes flashing with pent-up anger.
Mrs. Molly hurried over to where everyone’s gaze was fixed.
“Beth, I’ll take care of things here. Go get the hemostatic agent from bed number 7.”
As soon as Mrs. Molly spoke, Beth headed towards the indicated bed without a moment’s hesitation. Debert’s intense gaze clung to her retreating figure.
“What are you all doing? Standing there dazed! Get back to the patients!”
At Mrs. Molly’s sharp rebuke, the room returned to its earlier bustle.
“Ah! Be gentle!”
“Bed 5 needs surgery!”
It wasn’t until the room was once again filled with noise that Mrs. Molly took a deep breath. It had been a series of relentless moments since the previous night. Though it was always like this on the frontlines.
Pouring disinfectant into Arthur’s wound, she spoke quietly.
“She doesn’t know you. Try to understand.”
Debert, uncharacteristically impatient, picked up and donned his uniform jacket. He could feel the glances from others, but only one person, Beth, was absorbed in her task, not looking at him.
Debert swallowed back the curses rising in his throat.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Molly was using tweezers to extract the bullet lodged in Arthur’s left abdomen.
“Thankfully, it’s not deep.”
“I’m too handsome to die, anyway. Ouch!”
Arthur, feeling slightly better, joked before grimacing and burying his head.
“That’s right. There are only two handsome men among the Nexus Dukes, so they should all go home alive.”
“Did you hear that? She said I’m handsome.”
Debert, who had been fixated on a single spot as if he heard nothing, walked towards the centre of the room.
His imposing presence caused the reclining soldiers to scramble back and even the doctor pushing a cart to hastily retreat to a corner to avoid him.
“Attention.”
With that single word, the boiling noise was instantly quelled.
“As you know, the ‘Dawn’ operation failed.”
His tall frame and well-built physique, combined with the lethal look in his grey eyes, made Debert embody every unflattering nickname he had earned.
“Clearly, this means there’s a traitor among us we haven’t yet found.”
Beth quietly observed the man standing just a few steps ahead of her.
They weren’t ordinary stab wounds or scrapes. Those were scars from repeated whippings, never fully healing before being struck again. Beth knew this better than anyone.
But who in the Nexus army could have done this to the commander?
As if sensing her gaze, the man’s eyes briefly flicked towards Beth but moved away just as quickly.
“Fortunately, the allied forces have arrived. Nexus will only accept victory. Focus on your recovery.”
Biting his teeth in irritation, Debert left the room. Arthur, trying to hold back his friend, asked, “Are you really leaving?” but received no response.
—
Debert laid down on his bed, his wet hair dripping. The rusty iron frame creaked under his weight.
With the operation’s failure, once the troops recovered, they would rejoin the battle with the allied forces. This meant an unwanted respite for now.
At the end of a war that seemed never-ending, Debert too felt the overwhelming fatigue. But even when he forced his eyes shut, he couldn’t fall asleep due to the throbbing headache.
He took a dry cigar and pondered for a moment, then took out a familiar tranquillizer from the drawer. But soon, a low curse was heard, and the empty bottle fell to the floor.
Of all days, today.
He considered going to the medicine storage, but the hospital was still bustling. He didn’t want to be seen in such a state by anyone.
As the cigar smoke curled upwards, the face of a woman floated within it.
A woman who recoiled from the smoke yet couldn’t avoid it, her pale neck and furrowed eyes catching it all.
And today, her slightly parted lips upon seeing his scars.
Was she shocked by the meaning of the scars? Or just…?
Debert took a swig from the whisky bottle, wishing he could drown his head in it.
His rough hand swept over his face. Even he couldn’t read the expression there.
Did the alcohol pouring down his throat grant his wish?
Soon, a heavy drowsiness overtook Debert.
—
The dream was hazy. Around fourteen or fifteen, the boy’s face was much younger. He was trembling. In front of him stood his father, Duke Cassius, a head taller than his son, as always, devoid of emotion.
Without hesitation, he grabbed his son’s neck. There was no hesitation in the brutish grip.
“Ugh… Father…”
No matter how much the boy struggled, his father’s grip only tightened. The whip in his free hand rose high. The boy’s young eyes filled with terror.
“I’m sorry…”
The scene shifted abruptly.
Eighteen-year-old Debert faced his uniformed father, Cassius. Now taller than his father, he slowly pulled the trigger of his sleek rifle.
The last scene Debert remembered, and the worst.
Bang!
“Gasp… Gasp…”
Debert woke up, panting heavily. His heart pounded loudly in his ears, his sweat-soaked body shivering from the cold.
“Fuck! Damn it!”
At Debert’s furious outburst, everything within his grasp was hurled to the floor, shattering the early morning silence of the barracks with a series of dull thuds.
He thought he had almost forgotten those memories.
Perhaps having his scars seen by that woman at the hospital had dragged those nightmares back from the depths of his mind. Or maybe it was simply because it was an unusual night without his usual medication.
Shaking the empty whisky bottle, Debert found no comfort in its hollowness.
It was 3 a.m.
Forcing his lethargic body to move, he got up.
Outside the barracks, the night was filled with the sounds of insects and the soft glow of fireflies. Who could possibly call this place a blood-soaked battlefield?
Devert was not accustomed to silence. From his earliest memories, his hands had always held a gun or a sword.
The sounds that filled young Debert’s days were not the voices of his peers but the blasts of gunfire and the clash of blades. As he grew older, it became the roar of battlefield artillery and the terror-filled screams of the dying.
So, in moments of such silence, Debert felt as though he was not himself, as if he had become something else, something out of a deceptively peaceful fairy tale.
As he had anticipated, most of the hospital rooms were dark. His steps took him down a side path towards the medical storage, not the hospital itself.
As always, the area was deserted.
Debert pulled out the necklace hidden under his shirt.
Unlocking the storage door with the key hanging from the necklace, he could find the medicine in the innermost cabinet even with his eyes closed.
Just as he was finishing this routine task and was about to leave,
“Hah.”
A stranger’s gun gleamed, aimed at Debert.
Turning towards the sound of breathing, Debert saw only the silhouette of someone hidden in the darkness and the glint of the gun barrel caught in the moonlight.
When Debert took a step forward, the soft light partially illuminated his face as well.
Even within friendly territory, the protocol was to identify oneself immediately upon seeing another in the dark. If there was no response, they were to be considered an enemy and quickly neutralised.
Debert and Arthur were the only exceptions to this rule. In the entire empire, there was no one who couldn’t recognise the War Demon and the Emperor.
Debert let out a wry laugh at the situation, where he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun in an allied hospital’s storage room, not even on the battlefield.
Despite the faint light illuminating his face, his opponent didn’t bother to ask who he was.
His eyes, remarkably keen in the darkness, soon discerned the figure’s shape clearly.
It was the woman who had led him to this nightmare and brought him here searching for medicine at this hour. Beth.
Debert approached her. Despite holding a gun, Beth stepped back as he advanced without hesitation.
In such a confined space, stepping back was the worst move.
Debert considered giving her this useless advice, which he wouldn’t actually convey.
Soon, his chest met the cold barrel of the gun.
Beth bit her lip, feeling the unfamiliar sensation of the barrel moving slightly with his breaths against his solid muscles.
Debert looked down at her, lost in thought. His gaze weighed heavily on Beth, much like the cigar smoke that had enveloped her in the barracks; his eyes exerted a subtle pressure.
His hand moved to the gun barrel. Beth flinched, thinking he was going to take the gun away, but instead, his hand reached for her trembling one.
Devert placed his hand over the woman’s and pulled the gun over. The click of the trigger echoed through the silence.
“How can you shoot a gun without even sliding it?”
His whispering voice tickled her ear.
“Are you strong?”
At the unexpected question, Beth’s eyes wavered uneasily. The man’s inscrutable eyes bore into her relentlessly.
“You don’t seem very strong. Bend your elbows a bit. You won’t be able to handle the recoil.”
Debert’s hand moved to her slender arm, bending her stiff elbow slightly.
“Now shoot.”
Beth looked up at Debert blankly.
Seconds passed as their gazes locked. Debert tilted his head slightly.
“You don’t seem to have any intention of shooting.”
The tension finally released, and the gun dropped from her aim.
As Debert made to leave the storage with a nonchalant expression, Beth quickly blocked his path.
“Don’t bother me and get out.”
Beth quickly snatched the medicine bottle from Devert’s hand, who was passing her by jokingly.
She quickly took a few steps back, as if she were going to make a big fuss like in the hospital room, but fortunately, the man’s expression was the same as before. Of course, she couldn’t tell the depth of his emotions.
She scanned his body with her eyes to check if he had taken any other medicine.
“Why don’t you strip me like you did earlier?”
Debert’s dry tone followed her as she moved to the cabinet.
Beth hesitated for a moment. How far did this man’s authority extend? Could his power surpass that of the hospital director? But soon she gathered her thoughts.
Rules are rules. No one, not even a commander or emperor, should access the battlefield medical storage without permission.
Especially after the rear hospital bombing yesterday.
The memory of last night’s events, which she had tried to bury surfaced, and she shook her head.
Debert watched her from where he leaned against the wall. She put the medicine away and firmly closed the cabinet door, then approached him with a determined look on her face, a stark contrast to when she had backed down in fear.
“Nothing.”
Debert spoke as he watched her scrutinise him.
Looking down at her fluttering eyelashes, he saw her eyes widen and her small mouth open with a soft ‘ah’.
Before he could say anything, Beth’s hand reached out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TRANSLATOR:
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Happy reading : )
