Episode 60
Translator: RaidenTL
Episode 60
He just wanted to disappear.
He’d hoped the war would end quickly, that there would be no more meaningless deaths? And this was the tragedy he had caused? Three units had been annihilated, leaving only four survivors.
He wanted to hurl the tray of medical tools laid neatly beside him. He wanted to scream, Why did you even bother saving someone like me? He wanted to strangle himself with the same hands that had killed everyone.
The only thing stopping him was the thought that he couldn't cause any more trouble. The men who died last night had desperately wanted to see today. He, who had been granted such a luxury, could not throw it away.
He tried to sort through his thoughts, but his mind was filled with things he simply couldn't comprehend. Evan doubted himself. Am I lost in some delusion?
But his mind was clear, and the memory was far too vivid to be a hallucination. Now, even that memory felt suspect.
“Have I… gone mad…?”
He stammered, pressing a hand to his forehead. It was hard to breathe. The world was spinning. Everything around him felt wrong. And then, a thought crept in.
What if I’m the one who’s strange?
His throat tightened as if slowly filling with water. He desperately needed someone to talk to.
He tried to force himself up, but his body, trembling and convulsing, wouldn't obey. He fell from the bed. With a thud, he heard footsteps rushing toward him from beyond the curtain.
The sound made him shudder. His heart hammered like a broken machine. He screamed, the veins in his neck bulging.
“I don’t want to hear it! Stop, stop it!!! Get the hell out!!!”
In those footsteps, he heard explosions. The smell of medicine turned into the stench of blood, the solid floor into a muddy quagmire. One moment he was in a comfortable hospital ward, the next he was in the heart of a battlefield. He couldn't breathe and broke into a fit of coughing.
The voices calling his name faded into the distance. The seizure dragged him down into a dark abyss. Swept away by the waves of unconsciousness, Evan passed out.
*
It was a long time before he truly came to his senses. The first thing Evan saw when he opened his eyes was Dietrich, looking down at him with a displeased expression.
His throat was raw, as if he’d swallowed sand, from all the coughing. In a low, sunken voice, Evan asked.
“How long was I out? A day and a half, is that right?”
“You already know, yet you feel the need to confirm.”
Evan gazed into the old man’s calm eyes and wiped a hand over his face. Dietrich watched Evan’s dark-ringed eyes, then noticed him biting his lip so hard it was about to bleed. His expression turned to one of alarm.
“Captain, could it be…”
“Go on.”
Evan let out a hollow laugh and shook his head. A question he never wanted to ask, but one he had to. He couldn't believe how weak he had become.
Blood trickled from his tightly clenched lips. The veins in his neck, taut with anger, pulsed.
Dietrich reached for a syringe to administer a sedative, but he froze at Evan’s next words.
“…Is there something wrong with my mind?”
“What did you just…”
“I’m asking if I’m showing signs of mental illness.”
Dietrich stiffened. After repeating “What?” with a dumbfounded look, his expression grew serious and he fell silent.
The men of Löwe, who considered fortitude their highest virtue, never uttered the words ‘mental illness.’
To them, it was nothing more than a shameful affliction of the weak. As a result, treatment was often delayed, leading to ruin.
He stared in shock at the second son of the House of Sylvester.
The House of Sylvester was renowned for being the most particular among the famously strict families of Löwe. He couldn't imagine the resolve it must have taken for a man born and raised in such a place to ask if there was something wrong with his mind.
Dietrich stared at the man’s haggard face for a long moment before slowly pulling a chair to his bedside.
“Occasionally, soldiers who have participated in the war show symptoms similar to yours, Your Excellency. They experience difficulty breathing, auditory and visual hallucinations, and insomnia.”
“…And?”
And? What did he mean? The old man looked with pity at the young man trying so desperately to read his expression. What on earth was he thinking?
“Is that all? Your diagnosis of my mental state.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.”
“I need a doctor’s opinion on my judgment and memory. If I’ve lost my mind, then prescribe it as such. That way, I can—”
“That is all. You haven’t lost your sense of time, and your speech is perfectly coherent.”
Seeing Dietrich’s firm reply, Evan managed a faint smile. So I’m not crazy… But was that really true? Even though it was a doctor’s word, he couldn't be sure.
Dietrich placed two sleeping pills in his hand.
“For now, the most urgent matter is to find psychological stability. Make a conscious effort to sleep at night and stay awake during the day.”
“My body is fine now, so please begin the discharge process—”
“Not until you’ve regained your psychological stability. And you say you’re fine? On this matter, you are not in your right mind. It will take a long time for your body to recover. For now, please sleep.”
Evan swallowed the two pills with water and drifted back into sleep. The pain from his shattered left ankle and the wounds that had narrowly missed his vital points slowly faded.
At the same time, the nightmare sharpened: the faces of enemy soldiers without faces, the ground collapsing in explosions, and the faces of his dying men.
He watched the scenes in his dream with a bitter smile and knew instinctively.
Ah, I will never be able to escape this dream.
*
His days fell into a routine. He would wake in the morning, stare blankly out the window, and then take a sleeping pill at night to welcome the nightmares.
Dietrich had said the priority was to rest and calm his mind, but he had no idea how to feel at ease.
Every time he recalled the mysterious, absolute power that had intervened in the war, all his efforts poured into an unwinnable battle felt utterly futile. Everything he did felt useless.
His helplessness extended even to the nightmares that visited him each night. He would sit there, numb and useless, in the midst of the blood-splattered scene, only to wake up drenched in a cold sweat.
That day, too, he had just woken from a dream of the blood-soaked battlefield. Evan frowned as he heard shouting from the unusually noisy ward.
“You who do nothing but touch pus and blood… do my words not sound like words?! I said give me more medicine!”
“The prescribed amount is sufficient.”
Pressing his fingers to his throbbing forehead, Evan listened to the conversation coming from beyond the curtain.
He recognized the voice of the man who was shouting. It was one of the high-ranking officers he had exchanged a few words with during meetings. Annoyed, he swept the curtain aside and asked.
“What is all this commotion?”
“Your… Your Excellency?”
“Why so surprised? My presence here was hardly a secret. Did you not come here prepared to shout?”
The man’s blood ran cold at the chilling words, and he fell silent.
Evan had heard there was a culture of looking down on doctors because they worked so closely with death and gore, but this was the first time he had seen it with his own eyes.
Normally, a soldier stationed in the ward would have dragged out anyone causing a disturbance, but everyone except Dietrich had been dispatched to recover the bodies of those killed in the last battle. It seemed this soldier had chosen this moment to come and make a scene.
Evan gave a small, mocking smile at the way the man was now cautiously watching him.
“Ah, I suppose you didn’t expect me to show myself.”
“No, no, sir. That’s not it. I heard your injuries were severe, so I didn’t know you were conscious. I apologize, Your Excellency.”
His recovery was indeed monstrous for an injury that had barely avoided crippling him. Evan smiled bitterly at the man’s arrogant demeanor, which had vanished the moment he faced someone of higher rank.
“Are you short on supplies?”
“No, sir.”
“If it’s not urgent, then wait and submit a request to headquarters. Now, get out.”
“Yes, yes!”
The soldier, who had been rushing toward the exit, bowed deeply and spoke to him respectfully.
“I regret the information leak from the last battle. There’s word that a disposition is coming soon, so perhaps…”
Though that wasn't the reality, Evan assumed the man was referring to the battle itself, which had resulted in an excessive number of casualties. He froze. The thud of the closing door sounded like a death sentence.
No, that’s not right. How can I be so shameless as to even think that? The executioner was none other than me. I killed so many with my own hands. I don’t even have the right to suffer.
I’m nothing but a fool who lived his life deluded into thinking he was achieving something great while doing meaningless work…
At that thought, his breath caught in his throat with a choking sound. Just as he was about to double over, gasping for air, the ward door burst open with a bang.
“Doctor!!!”
Dietrich shot to his feet at the soldier’s urgent cry. Startled by the sudden noise, Evan inadvertently took a proper breath and stared, pale-faced, toward the door.
A man covered in blood was being carried on another’s back, gasping for breath. The blood dripping to the floor quickly formed a pool.
Dietrich swiftly guided the soldier carrying the injured man to a clean bed.
“What happened?”
“A fall from a horse. He fell on an icy patch, which made the injury worse.”
There was so much blood it was impossible to tell where the wound even began. To make matters worse, a large, sharp piece of ice was embedded in the man’s side, next to his ribs.
Dietrich instinctively started to call for a nurse before remembering that no one else was on duty today. He immediately grabbed the man standing beside him. The young man stared back at him, his eyes wide.
“I need your help.”
“Me?”
Dietrich was relieved that the tone was not ‘How dare you ask me,’ but ‘How could I possibly.’ If the other person wasn't obsessed with authority, getting help was easy.
He handed Evan a clean cloth and pointed to a silver metal container of disinfectant, explaining urgently.
“I’m going to set the dislocated leg bone first. As soon as I do, I need you to help me treat the lacerations.”
“How can I…”
“You saved men whose limbs were torn off, did you not? Your Excellency already possesses basic first-aid knowledge. That will be more than enough.”
Evan opened his mouth to protest. To say that he hadn't saved them, that reinforcements had simply arrived quickly.
But Dietrich gave him no time, immediately turning his back. Evan stared blankly at the blood gushing from the injured soldier’s wound.
It was blood he had seen so much of, a red so familiar it now made him sick. As he watched it pulse out, the faces of those who had died because of his misjudgment appeared one by one.
There was a time when he had called red the color of passion. But now, all he could see in it was death.
He scoffed inwardly. Is there any meaning in this treatment? Isn’t everything already decided, as if by fate? Isn’t it impossible to interfere?
“What are you waiting for?! If he keeps bleeding like this, he could die!!!”
It was Dietrich’s shout that pulled his fading consciousness back. Snapping to his senses, Evan immediately soaked the white cloth in disinfectant and began to clean the wound.
He held the patient’s writhing body steady and thought, an unidentifiable emotion welling in his green eyes.
He’s still alive.
To be bleeding meant he was alive. In other words, he wasn't dead yet. He could be saved.
With unfocused eyes, he pressed down firmly on the wound to stanch the bleeding. His bloodshot eyes trembling, he muttered incessantly.
“I can save him…”
The faces of the countless men who had fallen in the battle he had believed to be perfectly calculated flashed through his mind.
He gritted his teeth against the memory of that battle—one he had started to save many, but which had ended up taking everyone’s lives—as it threatened to suffocate him. He muttered again.
This man is not dead yet. So I can save him. Please, please…
As he pulled out the deeply embedded piece of ice, blood surged between the fingers pressing down on the wound. Dietrich glanced at his first aid and commanded in a low voice.
“Fortunately, there’s no organ damage. For wounds that are too deep to stop bleeding, it’s best to use a coagulant. There’s a syringe and a potion on the third tray.”
Instantly reaching out, Evan grabbed the syringe and the vial at the same time.
“What’s the dosage?”
“0.17ml.”
After measuring the drug with swift precision, Evan saw beads of sweat rolling down Dietrich’s forehead.
With a sickening crunch, the patient’s leg bone was set back in place. Dietrich immediately took the syringe from Evan and continued to issue commands without pause.
“Compression bandage, sutures, needle.”
Taking the items from Evan, Dietrich began to expertly close the gaping wounds. The next order came without a moment’s rest.
“We need to check for head trauma.”
Evan lifted the patient’s eyelids to check his pupils’ reaction, then nodded to indicate there was no problem. Dietrich’s face relaxed in relief, and he spoke, his expression one of utter exhaustion.
“That should do it.”
“…Do it? What do you mean?”
“I don’t think a transfusion will be necessary.”
“Then, does that mean…”
Dietrich looked at the stammering Evan with a strange expression and replied.
“It means the treatment is finished. All that’s left is for him to recover.”
“…He’s alive?”
“He is. Why do you ask something so obvious?”
The old man answered nonchalantly and turned to start cleaning the soiled cloths and tray. Meanwhile, Evan stared blankly down at his own hands, soaked in blood from applying pressure.
With these hands he believed were sullied, he had saved someone.