31.
Despite Physician Flich’s advice, Irene Rios did not stop her busily moving hands. Physician Flich glared at her, annoyed that she wouldn’t even pretend to listen to his counsel.
“You won’t believe me, even if I tell you it’s a waste of effort. This is why these youngsters are all the same. They don’t even realize that this is what wisdom, accumulated through field experience, looks like.”
Just then, it grew noisy outside the tent. Unable to suppress his curiosity, Physician Flich waddled over, pulled back the tent flap, and called out to a passing soldier.
“What’s all the noise about?”
“Huh? Oh, Physician Flich.”
Recognizing him, the soldier said in a hurried voice, “His Highness has issued orders for a sortie. Everyone is busy preparing for the march. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go transport the weapons.”
Without waiting for a response, the soldier bolted away. The atmosphere throughout the camp was frantic, suggesting the soldier’s words were no lie.
Physician Flich let the tent flap drop and frowned as he returned. “I should stay quietly in the tent for the time being. It would be disastrous if I wandered around and got hit by a stray arrow.”
Pausing there for a moment, he suddenly widened his eyes. With an expression as if he carried the weight of the world’s sorrows, he muttered, “Anyway, if everyone is going out to battle, who is going to prepare dinner tonight? I shouldn’t just stand here; I need to go and check.”
Leaving behind a “good work,” Physician Flich scurried out. Only after his shadow had completely vanished did Mia grumble in a low voice.
“Physician Flich seems to think dinner is more important than the war. The soldiers don’t even know if they’ll be able to eat tomorrow, let alone tonight. Don’t you think he’s a bit heartless?”
Instead of answering, Irene focused on organizing her medical tools. Then, at some point, she stopped and tilted her head to listen.
“What is that sound?”
“Sound? What sound… oh?”
Mia, too, focused. The intermittent noises gradually formed a distinct shape.
“Ugh, ughhh…”
It was a groan. A painful moan struggling to escape through clenched teeth, no matter how hard they tried to swallow the pain.
Mia covered her mouth with both hands, her expression pitiful. “There must be a medical tent nearby. Oh, what should we do, Physician Rios? They must be in so much pain.”
Mia was right. The groans were not from just one person. A dull voice, a shrill cry, the rattle of phlegm, and stifled screams—they were all mixed together, sounding as if they belonged to a single, suffering entity.
“While I was living comfortably inside the castle, there were battles being fought here where lives were at stake, weren’t there? I feel so sorry for the soldiers. I didn’t even know that, and I was saying I didn’t want to come here…”
Mia’s eyes welled up with tears. Irene stared at her blankly. Once again, she did not know why Mia was crying.
But just then.
“Aaaaagh!”
A desperate scream shook the air. Then, an ominous silence descended. Irene and Mia stared at each other, their eyes wide.
“!”
“W-what was that?” Mia asked, trembling. “Could the Alvar soldiers have broken through?”
Irene quietly shook her head. It was not the sound of many people rushing about, but a single, sharp scream.
After a moment of hesitation, Irene put down her tool and stepped out of the tent. Mia followed with a startled face.
“Where are you going, Physician Rios? A battle might break out soon. Wouldn’t it be safer to stay inside the tent like Physician Flich?”
Stop.
Irene halted and turned to look at Mia.
To repeat, Irene did not dislike her. For someone who generally disliked people, this was unusual, but regardless, she did not dislike Mia.
Mia had paced anxiously when Irene was lost, and even though she was scared enough to tremble at the thought of a battlefield, she had followed anyway.
They had met for the first time here, and people usually kept their distance or brushed past Irene as if she were invisible. But not Mia. She always expressed her goodwill without reservation. Even when Irene gave no reaction, she never grew tired or gave up.
That was why Irene didn’t dislike Mia. Enough that she had decided to nickname her ‘Carrot.’
“Wait here.”
“I’m sorry, Physician Rios! Please don’t cut me off. I have three younger siblings I need to take care of. And my mother is pregnant with her fifth!”
Having apologized abruptly, Mia scrambled to follow.
Irene faintly furrowed her brow. She did not want Mia to get hurt. She wanted Mia to stay in a safe place. So why did Mia have to look so tearful?
Irene swallowed a sigh where no one could see. *As expected, I have no talent for making other people happy.*
“Please don’t leave me behind, Physician Rios.”
Mia stuck tightly to her back, afraid that Irene might drop her. The moment she felt the warmth of another person, Irene’s body flinched.
Just then, Mia pointed a finger. “I think it’s over there, Physician.”
“Aaaaaaagh!”
A heart-wrenching scream leaked out from between the flapping tent curtains.
Irene nodded and moved toward it, pushing aside the curtain at the entrance. Mia, swallowing hard, peeked out from behind her back.
“Ugh!”
Mia quickly covered her nose and mouth. The stench was overwhelming.
How to describe it? It wasn’t the smell of filth, nor was it the smell of rotting food. The fishy, musty stench was…
“The living and the dead are mixed together.”
It was only at Irene’s calm words that she realized the identity of the foul odor. It was the smell of decaying corpses.
It was a scent most familiar to Irene. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say it was a scent one could never grow accustomed to. A smell that pierced the nose every time, just as it had the first.
Irene looked around with indifferent eyes. The tent was the size of five or six of her own combined. Even though it was before sunset, it was dim inside, like early evening.
Wooden cots were lined up in rows. At a glance, there seemed to be forty of them. Not one was empty, and more than half were occupied by the dead.
Corpses that had begun to rot were mixed with those whose breath had only just ceased. Seeing them leaning crookedly against the cots, it seemed they had died while waiting for their turn.
“Oh, my god… This is horrible, Physician. This place is hell itself. Oh, God. Please grant these poor souls eternal rest.”
Mia clasped her hands together, tears welling in her eyes, and uttered a sincere prayer.
“Damn it, shut that mouth!”
A gravelly voice roared.
“!”
Startled, Mia clamped both hands over her mouth.
Irene’s gaze shifted to the man who had shouted. He was a bearded man who had been rushing between the cots all by himself.
Sun-tanned skin, a bushy beard, broad shoulders, and muscular arms. He was a man with an impression better suited for an axe than a sword.
“Aaaaaaagh!”
“I told you to shut your mouth! Do you want to die of excessive blood loss?”
The man threatened, waving a red-hot iron rod. The soldier, clutching his right side, shuffled backward on his buttocks. Bright red blood was gushing from between the soldier’s fingers.
“I’d rather die of blood loss! Whether I die by fire or bleed to death, it’s all the same in the end!”
“You idiot. I don’t care if you live or die. There are plenty of others who need saving anyway. If you’re lucky, you might still be alive when I come back around.”
The man moved away with an irritated look. As he said, there were countless people waiting for his touch.
“Damn. It’s never-ending.”
The man grumbled and walked to a cot on the other side. The soldier lying there looked just as critical, muttering to himself while staring into the air, having lost half his mind.
“Hey, you. Wake up. If you lose your mind here, you’re dead.”
“Master Uno, you need to look at this side, too!”
“Wait a moment. If I’m not careful, this guy will become a corpse too.”
Irene silently observed the carnage.
*True medicine exists outside the college, not inside!*
Perhaps Miguel’s words were right. Even Irene, who had sewn up countless corpses, had never faced so many at once.
The boundary between life and death, where a single misstep could send one plummeting into the abyss of hell—that was the battlefield.
“…”
No one paid any mind to Irene and Mia. They were too preoccupied. One doctor and three soldiers assisting him were caring for all the wounded in the tent.
Unlike the chilly early spring air outside, a bizarre heat was boiling inside. Packed with people, the feverish breath exhaled by the patients. That unpleasant heat, mixed with everything else, crawled silently like a snake over Irene’s nape.
Those waiting for death had a fiercer yearning for life than anyone else. That was why their being alive felt so vivid. The fact that they were not the cadavers she had faced in the anatomy lab, but people exhaling hot breath.
“Aaaaaaagh!”
Someone screamed. To live. Because they didn’t want to die.
“Save me! Please, save me!”
It was the same for Irene. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live. For a very long time.
So she let out a scream, like a desperate struggle. A scream that no one could hear, a scream that even she could not hear herself.
Save me.
Please, save me.